Murudeshwar Sivan Koil - A temple tour to Mangalore

             After lunch, we started to Murudheshwar Sivan temple. This was the temple which I was waiting for... While travelling before a few kilometers itself.. we are able to see the gopuram of the temple. This temple is build on the beach shore. We parked our vehicle in the beach and went towards the temple. Wow..It’s most majestic Gopuram I have ever seen. I was superb, it took a while for me to return back to the real world.  From the beach you can see the huge statue of Sivan (123 feet , seen very long from Arabian sea) which makes us stumble in devotion. If I am not wrong, this is the tallest Shiva statue in the world.

            To reveal the history of this place, you have to travel back to Ramayana. To tell the story in short. Once Ravana got the athma Lingam (which belonged to lord shiva ) through his prayers for immortality and started travelling. Lord Vishnu appears and blocks the sun, to appear as dusk. Since Ravana has to perform the evening rituals, he needs someone to hold the Atham linga which cant be grounded on earth. Mean while a small brhamin boy passed near by.  Ravana told the Brahmin boy to hold the Athma Linga and he also told him that the Athma Linga must not be grounded. 

               Being tricky, the brahim boy kept the Aathma Linga in the ground and ran away. Actually lord Ganesha was in disguise of the Brahmin boy. Vishnu unblocked the sun and the dusk turned into normal daylight. Now Ravana after rituals, knowing that he is tricked got angry and tried to uproot the Athma lingam. Due to the enourmous force exerted by Ravana, the Linga broke into pieces. 

               One of the head piece went to Surathkal. The famous Sadashiva temple is built around the scattered piece. Then he decided to destroy the covering of the AtmaLinga, and threw the case covering it to a place called Sajjeshwara, 23 miles away. Then he threw the lid of the case to a placed called Guneshwara (now Gunavanthe) and Dhareshwara, 10–12 miles away. Finally, he threw the cloth covering the AtmaLinga to a placed called Mrideshwara in Kanduka-Giri (Kanduka Hill). Mrideshwara has been renamed to Murudeshwara.

                I clicked a lot of pictures. Thank God I had a bit wide angle lens to tilt the camera and take the picture of the whole Gopuram. Many of the cameras were not able to cover the whole temple in a single shot.  We then entered the temple, worshipped and climbed up to see the huge Shiva statue. From there you can find the Big Ratham (war scene).  

                 Near to the huge Shiva, you can find the Saneeswara bhagavan temple.One good facility in this temple is they provide the lift facitlity to go the top of the gopuram and have the entire site seeing.. It was superb for us and we enjoyed the sunset in the sea with our Shivan statue. The ticket cost for this is around 15rs . Don’t miss the lift trip.

                 From there we went to the beach which was a silent beach which less waves. There some sports like speed boats and individual boat rides were there. It was around night, and we enjoyed the lighting around the temple. But I still wonder why they did not give lighting facilities to the Gopuram.  We then left to the room. It was a wonderful temple.

How to reach the temple:

Road: (1 km off National Highway)
From Mangalore: Udupi - Kundapur - Byndoor - Bhatkal - Murudeshwar
From Karwar: Kumata - Honnavar – Murudeshwar

              Bhatkal - 16 kms

              Idagunji - 20 kms

              Gokarna - 65 kms

              Karwar - 120 kms

              Kollur - 63 kms

              Jog Falls - 90 kms

              Manjuguni - 90 kms

              Udupi - 100 kms

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