Adichunchanagiri Hills – The only Kalabhairava temple in South India

I’m running out of places around Bangalore to visit on a weekend 🙁 that said, planning a trip around Bangalore has become more difficult for me now than it was ever. Well, Adichunchanagiri was on my list since long but since it was a more of a devotional place I’d skipped it until now.

Best of the beast: Blood in the tank, Fuel in the veins

Brief about the place: Adichunchanagiri in Nagamangala taluk of Mandya district is the holy land, engulfed with divine resonance and vibrant nature.  It is believed that Lord Shiva performed penance here, during which he devoured two demon brothers, Chuncha and Kancha. Who were pestering people in the nearby villages for a long time. Thereafter, the place came to be known as Adichunchanagiri and Chunchanakote. Lord Shiva also assured that he would reside at Adichunchanagiri in the form of Panchalingas — Lord Gangadhareshwara, Chandramouleshwara, Malleshwara, Siddeshwara, and Someshwara. The place thus came to be known as ‘Panchalinga Kshetra’.  This temple is the only one dedicated to Lord Kalabhairava in south India and no such temple has been constructed in the past 500 years.

National Highway 75 was a treat to ride

Saturday Morning: I got up and 5.30 and I hit the road at 6.30 in the morning. The first thing I do soon after the ride starts is – have a hot cup of tea to kick start the journey but today was I was not in that mood. After Nelamangala I took a left turn which leads to the Hassan-Mangalur highway. This was the first time I was riding on this stretch, the 4 lanes national highway was a treat to the riders like us with less traffic. After around 60 kilometers I saw this beautiful Begur lake to the left so decided to take the first photo break. This obscure place was a heaven for photographers like me. There were so many different kinds of birds by the lake and the lake itself was spellbound by the morning sun rays.

Found this cute little puppy near a lake

Beautiful lotus flower

Me giving a swag pose everytime we stop for a break

Adichunchanagiri: After another break for a photo shoot, we finally reached Adichunchanagiri. Surprisingly, there were not many people around given the fact that it was a weekend. I parked the bike under shade and started walking towards the temple. After climbing around 200 odd steps we reached the main temple. We deposited shoes and luggage at the shoe counter (better to get rid of the heavy backpack as you have to do a little bit of trekking later on). It was 11 am in the morning but the sun rays were sharp. We started walking towards the main temple.

View of the Adichunchanagiri hills we will be covering today

Statue of  Sri Balagangadharanatha Swamiji, who has immensely contributed to the field of education, medicine, and other fields through the mutt.

Nicely constructed stairs to reach the temple atop

Gigantic statues of dwarapalak at the entrance

As you climb you can get a complete view of the surrounding place

Kalabhairava temple

Dasoha hall

Kalabhairava Temple: In 2008, a magnificent temple dedicated to Lord Kalabhairaveshwara has constructed at a cost of Rs 85 crore by Sri Balagangadharanatha Swamiji. As many as 1,200 people, including sculptors, toiled round-the-clock over nine years to make Swamiji’s dream temple a reality. It is entirely constructed using stones. Doors, pillars, ceiling, everything at the temple is in stone and there are about 64 different varieties of Bhairava statues.

Inside the kalabhairava temple

Kalabhairava statues in different avatara. There are totally 64 avataras displayed in the temple

We were lucky enough to witness the aarti performed for the lord. After aarti, we proceeded to have a look around the temple and its architecture. Well, it was time for a little workout, so we came out of the temple and started ascending towards the summit. En route there were a couple of more temples and a beautiful Nandi statue. 

The new temple which was under construction

Gigantic Ganesha statue caved on a single rock

More steps leading to the summit of the hill

The Nandi statue and the Kalabhairava temple gopuram in the frame

People try to climb this poles to ring the bell

Gangadheshwara swami temple en route

I stepped on a sharp rock edge injuring myself. Walking barefoot can be challenging sometimes

View of the entire temple

Panoramic view of the temple

steps were steep and irregular at places

The path splits into two from this fort wall

The most difficult part of the trek: I opted to try out the chain one first. After 2 minutes of walk, we reached a boulder which looked quite scary. I had to negotiate steep boulders holding small iron rods embedded in the rock. Even more challenging was to reach ‘Akasha Bhairava’ on a vertical rock holding a long iron chain. The crevices between boulders looked unfathomable and very dangerous. I decided to return back from this point as I was scared to climb any further.

This is the toughest part of the trek

While I stepped back to climb the chain, few others climbed till the peak

Yet another cave temple at the peak

Shivalinga inside the cave temple

I decided to go to the other peak which was relatively easy and need to cross boulders using iron roads only. There was a small cave temple on the way beyond which the second toughest pass of the trek was waiting for us. In the beginning, it looked scary but wasn’t much difficult to cross. We reached a large flat area where there was a big lamp on the right. Maybe it will be lit up during auspicious occasions only. We sat there for some time enjoying the cold breeze and mesmerizing view.

Markonahalli Dam

Markonahalli Dam

Watching sunset would be amazing from this point

It was almost sunset time but we decided to go to Kunigal lake in the meantime

Kunigal lake: If you are one those 90’s kids then definitely you would have heard the song moodal kunigal kere. It was a very famous song in Kannada during early 2000. I did want to see the lake just for this reason. GPS navigation wasn’t much help to find the exact entry point to the lake so we inquired locals for the directions.

Anybody remembers this song?

The lake wasn’t as beautiful as expected though

The lake was huge but it wasn’t as beautiful as I had imagined while listing to the old song. Neither we could get a good view of the sunset from this point. This lake is not much popular with the tourists but there were so many localities who had come near the lake for the evening walk and to chill out with their friends and family.