Blog on Kotilingeshwara Temple

 

This blog is about my Kotilingeshwara temple trip. It is one of the famous temples in Karnataka. It describes the route, special about the place, and a few pictures of the place.

 

Recently I have got a chance to visit Kotilingeshwara Temple, a famous temple in Karnataka in the Kolar district which has the intent to install 1 crore shiv linga there. It was long pending on my bucket list. As my friends were either busy or not interested in visiting a temple I decide to make it a solo trip on my Bike from Bangalore (Electronic city area).

We got up at 5 AM and left the place by 6. Since it was supposed to be a small half-day trip I didn't pack much just a water bottle.

We started from Hoodi Whitefield at 6 AM, head towards Koramangala and then to Bangalore –Tirupati highway via Indiranagar. it was a bit cold in the morning. The road to Kolar is very good and scenic as well. I took a left turn as soon as I entered the city and followed the road (as suggested by GPS. After riding around 20-25 km from the city, before 2-3 km from the temple, I saw a giant statue of Lord Hanuman (which was unexpected). It was marvellous and it made my day there itself.

From here after riding 2-3 km more I reached the main temple. The total time taken to reach the temple from home was around 3 hours. The Kotilingeshwara temple trip was interesting for me.

There is a nice covered parking space for bikes and cars. I parked my bike right before the temple (As I saw the parking space after parking my bike). Started walking towards the temple, on the way I get a place where you can leave your shoes and baggage if you want (yes they charge for it, 5rs for shoes and 5rs for the bag). I left my shoes there. Taking the camera inside is chargeable and the charge for the camera is 100rs. I went inside.

There are many temples (around 9-10, sorry I didn't count) inside the temple complex. Main among them are Lord Vishnu, Lord Maheshwara, and Lord Bramha, There is the temple for Lord Kotilingeshwara, Lord Rama (along with Sita Mata and Laxman Ji), Lord Ganesha( there is Pancha Mukha Ganesh) and lord Anjaneya also.

As soon as you will enter the temple your eyes will be delighted with the colourful sight of uncountable Lingas. This was one of the major attractions in Kotilingeshwara temple. There are lingas of various sizes small big and very big, starting from inches to the largest linga in the world you will be able to see it here. This was one of the specialities in the Kotilingeshwara temple trip.

According to the wiki, the largest linga here is 108 feet (33 meters) tall and while the largest Nandi statue is 35 feet (11 meters tall). There are other two very big Linga and Nandi statues (obviously not as big as the biggest) and a big Hanuman statue too. 

We spent around 2-3 hours there. Clicking pictures, watching different lingas and many other statues, admiring the effort it takes to maintain such a big project. You will be able to see linga installed by Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan there then came out of the temple complex.

Outside of the temple complex next to the parking area, there is one hotel where you can have a few rice items, tea, coffee etc. The quality of food and maintenance of this hotel is not so good.

The journey back home was a pleasant one, as the weather was good.

Some Quick facts about the Temple –

1.      Timing: 6 am to 9 pm

2.      Temple Entry: Free

3.      Camera charges: free

4.      Covered Parking

Temple was founded by Swamy Sambha Shiva Murthy in 1980. Temple has a vast land of 15 acres and is still being constructed. It is said that around 90 lakhs (9 million lingas) have already been installed.