Mathada Basti...ShravanBelagola

 

This Jain Basti is known for it’s exquisite sculptures and frescoes. Its located in the town next to the Bhandara Basti. In this Muth the walls, of the Verandah which surrounds a central courtyard, are decorated with mural paintings.

 

The Jain religion is contemporary of Buddhism, believes in cycle of rebirths and consequently regards life as painful, longing for liberation. It came to Karnataka four centuries before the Christian era. The Gangas, Kadamba, Chalukyas and Hoysala kings had encouraged the Jainism. They have left innumerable shrines, Bastis , Gomata statues and Stambhas (pillars). The Matha or the Mathada Basadi appears to have been built or renovated during the 18^th century. But Chavundraya founded the Matha and installed his guru Namichandra Sidhantadeva here.

 

There is open space in the middle of the Math and of late it is covered by a ceiling and a store was added in 1930. The Matha has three donors engraved on them are worshiped here. Its walls have fone murals : One depioting the durbar of Krishnaraja Wodeyar III and also paintings of Panchparameshthis, Neminanatha , Parshwanatha's Samavasarana, Yakshas and Yakshis, forests where munis lived etc.

 

The panels on left depict the life of Parshvanatha who underwent many rebirths. In his firs birth he was known as Marubhuta born to a minister to king Aravinda. He had an evil brother called Kamatha. When elder brother was on a mission with the king, Kamatha declare himself the emperor and tricked his brother's wife to have sex with him. After the king's return he was severely punished.

 

He was given a head shave while boys urinated on his head; He was parade on a donkey's back while the boys threw stones at him. All these events could be recognized in different panels. Other wall paintings depict episodes from King Bharata and Prince Nagakumar an annual fair has been painted in detail.

Waynad Trip Part-2

Kanthanpara Waterfalls ...Our local guide told us that there was another waterfall nearby and it was better place so we moved to the next place when we reached this place to our surprise all we saw was a small fall as though few buckets of water was being poured down we were disappointed with this.

But our guide had some surprises in store and he took us further down and when we asked where we were heading he in his own language said something which we could not decipher,

After a small trek we saw a different world a complete change from the small fall to a huge very big roaring waterfall ahead called Kanthanpara Waterfalls no one could have even imagined that there was another huge waterfall ahead further down there was another step of the same waterfall totally making it a three step waterfall.

Our guide was extremely pleased to show his discovery and we were in awe at the sight, being very enthusiastic and eager to show us many more places our guide was in big hurry to move on, after a light lunch with local delicacy of a dish called Puttu we started towards a place called Edakallu caves a prehistoric caves discovered by a British explorer.

Though this place is way up the mountain where no one would have dared to venture it’s wonderfully maintained by Kerela tourism, Here 3 caves are located at a height of 1000 meters on Ambukuthi mala near Ambalavayal. We can either walk up till the caves or go by local transport where it’s a dare devil fete with the jeep drivers due to constraint of time and we were already exhausted with so much of adventure we hired a jeep which took us till the entrance,

We then climbed the steep rocks and entered the caves going back to Stone Age we tried to understand the language of prehistoric era though everything was depicted with pictures it was alien to us, looking around for some time we headed back we had many things to assimilate with our adventure packed day.

On our way back we saw a rock formation resembling a human and an elephant nature was at its creative best and weather being very considerate with us though it was monsoon we were fortunate to see many wonderful things nature had provided, finally we headed back to camp and relaxed for the day discussing about all the places we had seen, totally exhausted we slept early.

Next day we got up early our plans to climb the Chembra peak didn't materalise as it was a two day trip and we had just a day ahead so nothing to see further planning to come back again for the climb we headed back to Hometown.

My Hampi visit

We a small group of 10 reached Bellary early morning. We freshened up &had our breakfast in a teammate’s house after that we left Bellary moved to Mantralaya and had grace of Guru Raghavendra Swamy. Last year we cancelled this trip because of heavy flood in this area; our driver told some interesting incidents about last flood which occurred in 2009.

We reached Hospet at around 10pm.This time whole trip was organized and taken care by Mrs. Renuka Ramesh Kamath. We had a very comfortable shelter & very good food because of her influence. Next day morning we reached Hampi, some of our teammates had already visited this place. So one by one we visited some important places, it is a very huge temple complex and very beautiful it would take at least a three whole days to see the place completely. 

The weather is very hot, dry & very dusty Hospet is a complete mining area iron ores around has made this place a complete dry place though it's very beautiful, Indian Government has spent a lot on this place & even archaeology & Karnataka tourism department proudly projects about heritage India and how all our precious temples have been restored their places and well protected & improved Hampi some places they have done a great job but still so many temples are falling apart ,roads to these places are in a very bad condition hardly any shelter from the scorching heat and availability of even water or food is a dream.

We visited Virupaksha temple, Vittal temple, Beautiful market streets, Lotus (Kamla) temple, Mahanavami Dibba, Beautiful puskarini’s & artistic steps tanks, Anjaneya temple, Ugra Narasimha, Stone chariot, Elephant stables, Hajara Ramaswami temple, Kings balance place,Mustard Ganesh, Sisters stones, Badavi Linga etc.

Due to lack of time and the heat we took some light snacks instead of lunch some of our teammates enjoyed in Tungabadhra River with coracle ferry ride. On the way back a beautiful Sunset on Tungabadhra dam a wonderful sight to behold completed our long trip.