Day-8: Murdeshwar, Gokarna

We reached Murdeshwar on the evening of December 30th. 

The following trip was on December 31, 2023.

(1) Murdeshwar

- Hotel room overlooks the sea. Roll of mountains in the distance, endless coconut trees, and lots and lots of people in the water!

- Visit to Murdeshwar temple in the morning. At 6:30 am also, there is a crowd. But the hotel contact-person helps to avoid the crowd for a quick darshan

- Giant shiva statue facing the land (with his back to the ocean) is impressive

- One of the tallest gopurams

- Shrines for Atma Linga and Parvati are inside the temple

View from the hotel room- Giant gopuram and ocean!

Shiva at the ocean front

Murdeshwar temple with gigantic shiva

(2) Maha Ganapati temple (at Idagunji)

- As per the temple priest:

- Ida means elephant. Gunji means valley. Ganesha is present in this valley.

- Deity has only 2 arms, unlike the usual 4-armed Ganesha.

- He is in standing posture.

- He is "bala-ganapati"- so much so, even the 2 tusks are full.

- Deity has a very child-like appearance and from the vigraha, it is clear, this place is ancient

- This Ganesha is related to the incident that occurred at Gokarna, where baby Ganesha tricked Ravana to place the Shiva linga on the ground, so much so, he couldn't lift it thereafter.

Idagunji temple facade- shiva parivaar

(3) Venkataramana temple (at Kodlamane)

- Captivating deity

- No crowd

- Peaceful and fulfilling darshan

(4) Mahabaleshwar temple (at Gokarna):

- One of the 8 mukti sthalas in Karnataka (earlier blog (Day-6) has the full list of 8 sthalas)

- It is crowded, with tourists milling all over the place!

- Temple is unique- not in Kerala style, but built with stone. 

- The temple tower (over the main sanctum) is also unique-  it is conical, but many-sided.

- The temple walls have interesting bas-relief sculptures- rows of cows worshipping the linga, lining up on either side. Afterall, this Gokarna and related to the cow. There are other animals too- elephants and even a camel (bas-relief sculptures as we wait to get into the main shrine)

- Long queue- no provision to beat the crowd through any special darshan ticket!

- Linga is unique:

   (a) At eye-level is a silver shiva-linga twisted like the ear of a cow.

   (b) At the base is Mahabaleshwara- you can touch the idol. The priest said- what we see at the base, is only the tip of the shiva-linga. The rest of it is hidden and under the ground. Once every 12 years, the linga can be seen fully. Currently, all you can see is a slight mound, with an aperture. The rest is below.

- Devi here is "Taamra-gowri". As per the priest, Parvati gets this name because she is associated with the "taamra-shila" (copper-like (taamra) mountain/rock (shila)) here.

- The story of Gokarna is well known. Ravana was a devotee of Shiva and wanted to carry back the shiva linga. The stipulation was that he should not place it on the ground. To perform ablutions, he asks a wayside boy to hold the linga. The boy is Ganesha, who promptly places the linga on the ground! Ravana tries to yank the linga off, but he cannot. In the process, the linga gets distorted in shape, so that it resembles a cow's ear. Hence, the name "go-karna". (go = cow, karna = ear)

 Evening of the 31st December:

- At the Murdeshwar beach  

- Tons of people

- The water is shallow- you can wade quite a distance

- Took a speed-boat ride (boat with 8 people). It takes you for a few minutes into the sea and comes back. The Murdeshwar skyline and the setting sun are beautiful!

- With this, the trip comes to a close. Tomorrow morning, we head back to Bangalore.

- The route back to Bangalore is roughly this- From Murdeshwar, we go to Shivamogga and head to Bangalore from there.