Melukote, a spiritual ride

This was a place which was in my want to go list saved on my Google maps account. Melukote is a place with rich historical and spiritual importance, it was in 12th Century when a saint Ramanujacharya decided to reside in this location for 14 long years as a result it became a spiritual hotspot.

We had decided to start the ride at around 4 AM, 4 bike (3 Himalayan, 1 Suzuki Gixxer). 

Meeting point was hotel Taj, Yeshwanthpur. Since this was temple ride, I woke bit early around 3:30 AM to have bath and I was all ready at 4.45 and pinged my friend to check 

if he was ready, he told me that he was still getting ready. Three of them were all coming from Vijayanagar and as I stay in yeshwanthpur, so told him to inform me once they left the place. Around 4:30 AM i got a ping that they left, I unplugged my Phone from charger and got going,... 

I reached the meeting  point (Hotel Taj) around 4:50 and after a wait of 5 min they came, greeted each other plugged in my ear buds and we started our ride.

With all the breaks in mid finally we reached Melukote entrance around 7:45.

From the entrance it took us around 10 min to reach the temple. We enquired about the timing of the temple and decided to first visit a famous spot i.e,.  Rayagopura. 

Reaching the spot we saw many pre-wedding photo shoot were going on here. We spent some time here, took few snaps. Read historical fact about this place,

It is said that  this was the actual Cheluvanarayana swamy temple entrance built by Hoysala king Vishnuvardhana. Suffering from Muslim invasion of the 14th Century,

the temple and the surrounding historical artifacts lay ruins.

We were already hungry, but we ignored our hunger and moved next to visit Aka Thangi Kola (Sisters Pond), this was  just a few meters away from Rayagopura. 

There is a traditional story on these twin pond, it goes as there were two sisters and they decided to build a pond but one of the sister agreed on this plan unwillingly, as a 

result the pond created by unwilling sister was filled with slush and used for washing clothes and the other one was crystal clear, it was used as a drinking water. 

Next place to Visit was off course Cheluvanarayana temple, but before that we took few snaps with our bikes. 

We parked our bike and visited the famous Cheluvanarayana swamy temple, sculpture were carved beautifully on pillars of the temple. 

After taking the blessings from Cheluvanarayana, we visited a nearby hotel and had our breakfast. Post which we visited Yoga Narasimha temple, we had to climb few steps to reach this temple as it is in a upper elevation. 

It is believed that the idol of Yoga Narasimha temple at Melkote was installed by Prahlada himself, son of Hiranyakashapu.

Thank you for reading,...🙂