A day trip to Ghati Subramanya and Lepakshi

On 10-Dec-2017, my wife, her parents, her paternal uncle and aunt and I visited the Ghati Subramanya temple and Lepakshi. Lepakshi in Andhra Pradesh is famous for a statue of Nandi. As it turned out, the trip had other highlights to offer too.

This is the renowned Nandi at Lepakshi

A few photos and notes about the visit follow. Note: There are no photos of our group in this blog post.

We left home at around 7 a.m. in a SUV taxi. The drive was smooth, since it was early on Sunday morning. We took a deviation on the highway to go to the Ghati Subramanya temple. There was no good restaurant on this road. It irritated me to see luxurious resorts, but no decent restaurant ! The positive aspect was that the road had even lesser traffic than the highway. With vineyards on one side and various vegetables, the road kept us engaged. We finally ate breakfast at a small restaurant.

The Ghati Subramanya temple is several hundred years old. My wife's father said that the temple showed several improvements since his last visit, a few years ago. The aarati was due to be conducted at around 10:30 a.m. We entered the temple at around 10:15 a.m. Looking at the long regular queue, we opted for the "special queue".

This proved to be a good decision. We entered the sanctum sanctorum in a queue that was longer than what I had anticipated, considering that it was a special queue. Just after us, a couple of people came in, after which the doors were closed. We were lucky to be in the sanctum sanctorum during the aarati ! The young priest requested all of us inside to sit down. We sat down and saw the aarati at close quarters. After the "darshan", we congratulated ourselves for the decision to take the special queue.

To me, one highlight of the day long visit was that I saw several sparrows ! I was delighted to see sparrows play and fly about in  the courtyard of the temple, chirping among themselves.

There is one sparrow happily perched on the strut at the top !

Outside the temple, the vegetable vendors drew the attention of the ladies in our group ! In fact, there was more shopping of vegetables to be done before the end of the day.

We ate lunch (₹90 per plate) at Hindupur in a vegetarian restaurant, about an hour and a half away. The food was decent. We headed for Lepakshi after lunch.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/travel/The-hanging-pillar-and-other-wonders-of-Lepakshi/article13383179.ece describes the legends and the attractions of Lepakshi. My wife's father commented: "The place looks smaller than what I had imagined." Certainly, if I compare Lepakshi with Belur or Somnathpura in Karnataka, it is smaller. I entered the Lepakshi temple complex with a sense of curiousity.

What drew my attention immediately was the incredible art on the ceiling.

The painting on the ceiling shows the wedding of Shiva and Parvathi.

The temple has idols of Veerabhadraswamy, Ganapati, Vishnu and Bhadrakali. "Where is the Lepakshi Nandi?", we asked each other. When we were talking about it in Kannada, the priest heard us and told us in Kannada that the bull was about a furlong away from the temple on right ! I was pleasantly surprised to hear him reply in Kannada. It seems that just like people in Kolar speak Kannada and Tamil (and/ or Telugu) or just like people in Belagavi or Sholapur speak both Kannada and Marathi, people in Lepakshi are pretty familiar with both Telugu and Kannada !

Like the article in The Hindu indicates, the paintings on the ceiling are a wonder to behold. Looking at them with the head tilted was quite painful ; one wonders how the painters created the art there !

Another attraction in Lepakshi is the hanging pillar. A piece of cloth can be slid under the pillar.

This group of tourists used a handkerchief to check the hanging pillar. The handkerchief easily slid below the pillar !

What surprised me a little was the freedom with which these pillars could be handled by the public. Given our tendency to misuse and abuse in general, I feel that it is better to set up sentries who prevent the public from spoiling Lepakshi. It would be a tragedy if the hanging pillar was damaged simply because some over-enthusiastic tourists misused it in an attempt to understand how it works !

Outside the temple, there is a Shivalinga covered by the hood of the Naga snake.

Behind the Shivalinga are what look like ruins or perhaps an unfinished temple. The carving on the stone pillars is quite remarkable.

Almost all pillars had some carving or the other, some unfinished.

Near the ruins is the "Sita-pada". A man who appeared to be a local worker said that "Sita-pada" was the foot of Sita. This is almost certainly false. Still, the foot is worth seeing if only for the way in which it stimulates the imagination. Seeing the foot, my imagination conjured up a giant proportionate to the size of the foot ! An underground spring emerges near the foot.

"If the feet were this big, how big must the person have been?", I thought !

I saw a Telugu inscription nearby, where a "thali" (plate) has been carved into the stony ground. I don't know its significance but it looked interesting.

I wish I knew what this carving represented !

The halls around the main temple have pillars with carvings. Each pillar has three sections. Symbols (like the creeper and the jug) are carved. Again, I don't know what it represents, but it was nice to see !

Zooming into this photo, one can see a jug and other carvings on the lower sections of the pillars.

By this time, it was past 3:30 p.m. We headed to the Nandi statue. To locate it, my wife's father, his brother and I went ahead. The statue was indeed near the temple complex. Looking back, the ladies were missing ! We saw that the sight of healthy, rustic brinjals and the cheaper cost in Lepakshi had diverted them !

For its size, the proportions of the Nandi statue are excellent. It was curious to see a Shivalinga on the side of the Nandi statue. The area around the Nandi statue has been beautified to some extent.

The Nandi was draped in a cloth. There is a Shivalinga on its rear side.

Soon, we were headed back. On the way back, we stopped for coffee at Hotel Pranav. A fruit seller there had a green, oval fruit that I had never seen before. Once my wife pointed to the fruit and asked the fruit seller : "What is this fruit?", I was a little relieved. The fruit was not a novelty for me alone ! The fruit seller's reply was: "This is called the 'apple-ber'. It is grown in Bijapur and is good for diabetics." We purchased the fruit. It is bland with a hint of sourness.

This is the 'apple-ber' fruit - and no, it is neither a guava nor an avocado though this photo may suggest that !

Here also, I saw sparrows play in the muddy ground and flit about here and there !

Here are a couple more sparrows. One of them rolled in the mud !

Days after the trip had ended, we had fresh greens, avarekaalu, brinjals and fruit whose freshness satisfied our palates ! The sight of the sparrows is another memory from the trip now. Above all, the art I saw on the ceiling in the Lepakshi temple complex fills my mind with wonder.  All in all, the Lepakshi trip was a day well spent.