Team : Deekshith, Narendra
Route : Bangalore --> Makalidurga --> Hindupur (nearest railway station)--> Lepakshi (~123km)
Transport : Train, Auto
Date of journey : 08 July 2017
When it comes to travelling, I always prefer to travel by Train. This time, I decided to explore a place which could be covered by train route. After some sort of search in Google, I found an interesting place - Lepakshi. It didn't take me much time to search a train to Lepakshi. Hindupura is the nearest railway station, located at a distance of 13km from Lepakshi.
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View of Makalidura hill as seen from the train |
We took a Jaipur Express (12975) train from KSR railway station, at 1 in the noon. The train goes via Makalidurga, giving us beautiful view of Makalidurga hill. It took ~2hrs to reach the nearest railway station, Hindupura.
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Hindupur railway station |
From Hindupura, there are two options to reach Lepakshi, one is by local bus and other option is to take an auto. As the Frequency of bus to Lepakshi is very less, we decided to reach the temple by auto. one of the Auto driver agreed to take us for 320 bucks for the round trip.
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On the way to Lepakshi |
About the Place :
Lepakshi is a village in the Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh. The Lepakshi temple has shrines dedicated to Lord Shiva, Vishnu and Veerabhadra which were built during the Vijayanagara Kings' period (1336–1646).
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Temple entrance |
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Notice from the Archaeological Department about the temple |
Veerabhadra Temple
Built by the brothers Viranna and Virupanna. This temple is dedicated to Lord Veerabhadra. It is an example of the Vijayanagara architectural style. Points of interest in the temple include a rock chain, Vastu Purusha, the Padmini race lady, the hanging pillar, Durga Paadam, the eyes of Viroopaakshanna and Lepakshi saree designs.
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Veerabadra Temple Premises |
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With my friend Narendra |
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Sculpture's on the pillar |
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Hanging pillar |
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Massive Nagalinga statue |
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Beautiful carving on the stone |
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Kalyana mantapa |
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Lord Ganesha statue |
How the place got its name Lepakshi :
This is the place where Jatayu fell down after an unsuccessful battle with Ravan who had abducted Sita. When Sri Ram reached the spot, he saw the bird and said “Le Pakshi” as in ‘rise bird’ in Telugu and that’s how Lepakshi got its name.
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Footprint is of Jatayu from Ramayan |
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Temple premises |
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Sculpted Pillar inside the temple |
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Murals on the ceiling inside the temple |
You can find beautiful murals on the ceiling, depicting old stories of Mahabharata and Ramayana.
We then headed to visit a Nandi statue situated at about 200mtrs from the main temple. This Nandi statue is considered to be one of the biggest monolithic statue in India.
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Monolithic Nandi statue |
As the return train to Bangalore was scheduled at 6:30 pm, we then hurried up. The auto driver dropped us back to Hindupura railway station. After waiting for about 2 hour, the train reached the station at 8:30pm. We reached our home at Bangalore at 11:59pm.
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