" Into the Time Honored"....

To witness the wonders of ancient architects and rejoice the richness of our heritage centers, we decided to visit the historic monuments of kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh, our present residing place, to acknowledge the beauty of our incredible India for better living not just living!!!!

We decide to start this journey of “In to the Time honored” in a relaxed and unrushed mode by visiting 2-3 heritage places by starting early morning on our weekend days. This journey of us started with a bucket list of three temples for day -01 i.e., 10-12-2023:

1.   Soumyanatha Swamy Temple, Nandalur

2.    Chennakesava swamy and Siddeshwara swamy temple, Tallapaka

3.    Treteswara swamy temple , Hatyarala

 

1.    Soumyanatha Swamy Temple, Nandaluru:

To begin with, Soumyanatha swamy temple located in Nandaluru, Anamayya District was around 50 kms from the Kadapa City. It took around 1 hour to reach the temple, to say road way is quiet good, there is no hurdle in travelling. Once we enters the village we can sense the aura of cool breeze and green fields all around.

According to the literature, this temple was built in 10^th century by Cholas. It is one of the popular Vaishnava temple. The noticeable things about this temple is it has 4 raja gopurams on all the sides. We entered the temple through East Raja gopuram. Immediately after you enter the temple one thing that catches you is stone walkway in the center surrounded on either sides by greenery. The asymmetry of the walkway in its rock arrangement is what made it the most beautiful.

                                      

                                                        East Rajagoupram with stone walkway

Priests of the temple explained about the importance of pradakshina in the temple, devotees has to do 09 pradakshina around the temple and make a wish, once the wish is fulfilled they come back and do 108 pradakshina as gesture of faith in god. We did the same and made a wish…..

After we enter the temple, all you can see is main mandapam with 108 huge rock pillars with encryptions from Bhagavatham, lion faces,idols depicting art and many more deities of Hinduism. One important thing to notice is Mathsya Mandapam, located in the center of the temple, it is surrounded by four pillars with engraved Vinayaka idol and Rama idol. In the center of the mandapam we can witness a beautiful fish carving. We came to know from the temple priests that this fish signifies the power and has ability to swim, when the temple is pooled with water like during the time of floods.

The main idol Sri Soumyanatha swamy is facing towards east and this idol will looks similar to idol of tirumala devasthanam. The only difference is in this temple the Soumyantha swamy will have abhayahastham. The temple priests highlighted the architectural skills of cholas by saying that during sunrise and sunset the sunrays directly hits the foot of Sri Soumyanatha Swamy idol.

                                                                

Once we come out of the temple we can see huge galigopuram with intricate carvings and people offering their prayers by lighting diyas at this galigopuram. To the Right side of this Galigopuram one can see symmetrically stepped, square shaped peddha koneru (Water body) where the temple committee members will perform Kalyanothsavam of Sri Soumyantha Swamy in the month of June-July.

                                                         

                                                 peddha koneru

Apart from the main temple we can also offer our prayers to sub temples like Sri Anjaneya swamy, Narasimha Swamy and Vinayaka deities also.

 

2.   Chennakesava swamy and Siddeshwara swamy temple, Tallapaka:

Travelling around 20 minutes covering the distance of 12 kms from nandaluru located the village of Tallapaka, Kadapa District. The name Tallapaka has come to this village as this village is known for huts and crafts made from thati (palm) leaves.

 Before reaching the famous temples of this village, we can see 108 feet Annammacharyulu statue with thambura in his hand.

                                                                       

                                         108 feet Annammacharyulu statue

 

Tallapaka Annamacharya (22 May 1408 – 4 April 1503), also popularly known as Annamayya, was a musician and great devotee of Sri Venkateswara Swamy. He was born in the village of Thallapaka from here he started his career as a musician and composed around 32, 000 samkirtanas on Lord Sri Venkateswara.

In thallapaka at his residence, as his remembrance Annamacharyula dhyana mandhiram was constructed. Beside which we can see Chennakesava Swamy temple and Sudarshana chakra temple to the right side.

                                              

                                         Chennakesava Swamy temple

          Interesting to notice in sudarshana Chakra temple is the main idol of the temple on one half will be lord Krishna with his dear venu called as santhana venu Gopala Swamy. The other half of the idol is Lord Vishnu with sudardhana Chakra in his hand. This Master Piece is the witness of ancient art and culture.

          Beside this is the temple of Siddheswara swamy, where we can see Lord Shiva, Kamkshi Devi, Vinayaka, Dathatreya and Lord Karthikeya. We can also notice the statue of Ekthatathayya just infront of lord shiva.

          With keen interest about this new and ever seen idol, we asked the priests to explain about it, he started saying that Ekthatatayya was the person who used to experience severe headache and he could not find remedy for his headache and decided to die by beating his head to Shiva lingam in the same temple. When he was doing the same Lord Shiva appeared and questioned for his grief and provided relief to his bothering headache. Witnessing the Lord shiva’s Love towards his devotees, Ekthatayya asked a boon to Lord shiva that he want to stay in his temple and serve him for his life time. As his remembrance, His statue was built inside the temple and devotees will nod their head with idols head for three time and believe that doing this will relieve people from all health issues.

          Other interesting creation in this temple is we can see 3 giant trees (Banyan, Sami and Raavi) intertwined in to a beautiful art framework with branches and leaves representing the skills and hard work of nature in creating the wonders.

3.   Treteswara swamy temple, Hatyarala :

Hathyarala of Kadapa District is just 4 kms and 15 minutes away from Tallapaka. People call this place as Attirala, but the boards over here displays as Hathyarala. Being confused we started digging in to the origin of this village name. Here we came to know about the story behind “Hathyaral”.

     This story was from the epic Mahabaratha, once up on a time Rushi Jamdagni was deeply engaged in his meditation, His wife Renuka devi used to offer holy water for his prayers in a bowl made up of sand daily. One day Renuka devi went to river to get water where she a prince and she lost her senses for a moment and admired his beauty and returned back to ashram and offered holy water to Rushi jamadagni. Rush asked the reason for delay to bring the water. Renuka started explaining about what has happened at the river bank. Hearing to renuka, jamadgni was ferocious and asked his first son to kill his mother for her misdeed. The frist son denied killing his mother, then jamadagni askd his second son, who also refused to do that barbaric act. Rushi jamadagni was in rage and cursed his both the sons and finaly tried with his third son Parusharama. With the intention to follow his father’s orders he killed his mother with his axe.

     After seeing this rushi jamadagni has become quiet and calm. He asked his son to make a wish for following his father’s order without a word. Parusarama then asked his father to revive his mother and brothers for which rushi Jamadagni agreed up on. Still parasurma was not happy in his heart as he attempted to kill his mother, which was a deadly sin. He came up to his father and asked for the remedy to calm his soul. Jamadagni maharshi advised Parusarama to visit holy pilgrimages, he visited all the holy pilgrimages but he couldnot calm down his soul. As a last resort he came to Bahudha river and offer his prayers to lord Shiva (Tretheswara) here he lost his memory of killing her mother, hence the name “Hathyarala” has come to this village. In usage it is beong pronounced as “attirala”.

              To mark the act of Parusuram there is parusurameswara temple with beautiful architecture along the bank of river Bahudha. Inside the temple there is a mandapam made built with 108 pillars in 9 rows with 12 pillars in each row.                                              

       The name to this river Bahudha dates back to the story of two Brahmin brothers Sankha and Likitha. One day Likitha went out and came back very late to the ashram. Sankha asked Likitha the reason for being late, then he replied as on the way to home he saw a moango tree with full of fruits. He waited so long for the owner to took permission to pluck the mangoes. Since he didn’t turn up he plucked the mangoes and ate them. Listening to this sankha shouted at Likitha for his misconduct and asked to take punishment from the king for his theft. Likitha approached the king and explained what had happened. The king ordered to cut both the hands of Likitha as punishment for his robbery. Likitha came to his borther with blood oozing and lost arms. Sankha felt bad and asked his brother to take bath from the nearest river and started chanting a mantra. When he came out of the river he got his arms back. Hence the name Bahudha has come to the river.

With the blue sky above, cool breeze and paddy fields around, the glory of the flowing river Bahudha is admirable. We enjoyed watching in this scenic beauty and started back to our home with everlasting memories etched in our heart.

     I hope you enjoyed reading… stay tuned to travel with us in the journey of “Into the time honored”!!!!!

 

 

-SowjiSurya