Shravanabelagola – Gommateshvara Bahubali

I am blessed with three elder sisters, 2 of them already visited us in the past but my middle sister never visited us. I always request her to come but she always had some reason for not taking out time to visit Bangalore. As she is married in Jain dharm, she always use to say that whenever she come she will visit Bahubaliji, and I always replied “aao to, jaha kahogi waha chalenge”. So, finally the time came and my all 3 sisters visited together in May 2013 and not to mention visiting Bahubali was the only agenda outside Bangalore, it was mandated from her mother-in-law as well, so no reason to miss it. Rest of the time they wanted to spend shopping or at home.

From wikipedia – Shravanabelagola is a city located near Channarayapatna of Hassan district in the Indian state of Karnataka and is 158 km from Bangalore. The statue of Gommateshvara Bahubali at Shravanabelagola is one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Jainism, one that reached a peak in architectural and sculptural activity under the patronage of Western Ganga Dynasty of Talakad. Chandragupta is said to have died here in 298 BC after he became a Jain monk and assumed an ascetic life style. Jainism in this place is 2000+ years old.

We planned for Saturday, 18th May, Shravanabelagola is 158KM, not too far and we can do it in a day. As it was summer time we planned leaving early in the morning. We managed to leave at 7:00 AM, not a bad time with 4 ladies and 2 kids. We took NH-4 until Neelmangla and then took Highway 48 which goes all the way to Mangalore.

Both the highways are excellent, NH-4 is a 6 lane toll highway and we have elevated road now to bypass Bangalore traffic. NH-48 is a 4 lane toll highway without much traffic. Breezing on these 2 highways, it took us about 2:30 Hrs to reach Shravanabelagola. Road had some signs for Shravanabelagola, but as it happens usually in Bangalore / Karnataka, there was no sign at the end. We realized after 3-4 KMs that we have missed the turn, asked the locals and they guided us well.

Shravanabelagola is a small town and all roads leads to Gommateshvara Bahubali temple. Their is a small market and few restaurants near temple. We parked the car near temple and walked towards the main entrance. Shravanabelagola has two hills, Chandragiri and Vindhyagiri.

The 57 feet tall Gommateshvara Bahubali statue is located on Vindhyagiri hill, this statue is considered worlds largest monolithic stone statue. Every twelve years, thousands of devotees congregate here to perform the Mahamastakabhisheka, a spectacular ceremony in which the statue is covered with milk, curds, ghee, saffron and gold coins. The next Mahamastakabhisheka will be held in 2018. Chandagiri – small hill also has a famous temple and some monuments.

We decided to first go to bigger hill which has the statue of Bahubaliji. The hill is situated about 3049 feet from mean sea level and 200 feet from the above the ground level. At the entrance, we learned that we have to take about 600 stone steps to reach top of the hill, hmmmm, everybody seems to enthusiastic about the climb, there was another option of “Palki” for a payment about 250/-, but this is good for differently abled and very old people. It was still morning cool and stone steps were not very hot, it took about 30-40 minutes including breaks for all of us to reach the top. People coming back were giving courage to the climbers that not many steps are left (remember Anupam’s post on Bhutan
Monastery??).

The overall view of statue, temple, surroundings, hill was amazing, you can see the temple of Chandagiri hill as well. Lots of history is written on stone and preserved by glass casing. Few pictures below describes it well. Seeing the statue, kids were amazed but puzzled as Bahubaliji was not having any clothes, so, they asked the obvious question, why no clothes?

My sister explained Jainism and difference between Shwetambar and Pitambar and told them they will study the same thing soon in their 8/9th grade. We found a mix crowd, majority of the visitors were from Gujrat, UP, Bihar, MP and few visitors from other countries as well. As the statue is open, it does not take much time to offer the prayers and take the blessings of Bahubaliji. I usually do not take pictures of statue of any God, but, Bahubaliji statue is all different which I do not wanted to miss.

Well, after spending about 1.5 hour, we started back and reached with in 10 minutes. So fast, couple of reasons, we were coming down and main reason was that stone steps became too hot and feet were burning, so we had to run but with precaution as steps were little slippery too.

I asked everybody that shall we go first to the other hill or go for food, everybody looked at me and I got the answer that it is food. We looked for restaurant, there were few homes offering “Rajasthani / Marwari” food, we checked the place and not very convinced having the food there. We found one typical Udupi restaurant, and had lunch there. After lunch I said lets go to the other hill, but nobody wanted to take another 400 hot steps and we decided to go back to Bangalore.

It took us another 2.5 hours to reach back, there was another option I gave was to visit Bellur temple, which was about 1 hour drive from there but everybody was so tired that they wanted to go home. It was a long awaited visit to Shravanabelagola – Gommateshvara Bahubali, thanks a lot to my sister, I hope I will visit them again in 2018 during Mahamastakabhisheka.