What a trip it was. Always wanted to visit but somehow couldn’t materialise the plan properly and finally it happened. Even though we explored the ancient city just for a day, we were pretty much satisfied with the outcome and brought back good memories with us. Hiking the Anjani Parvat was the highlight of our Hampi trip, which is also the birthplace of Hanuman (one of the Hindu gods).
We decided to hike the Mathanga hill early morning. It took us a good walk of 15-20 minutes to reach the base of the hill. We started hiking right-away. On the way, from nowhere a teenager appeared and accompanied us till the rest of the climbing activity. Teenager turned out to be a 'Chaiwala' (Tea seller) who sells tea on top of the hill every morning. While hiking, he also helped us with identifying safer and more convenient short cuts to reach before sunrise.
The view of the city from the top of the hill was spectacular and mesmerising. After reaching on top of Mathanga hill we realised that we are not the only ones who reached the top before sunrise. There were quite a few people already reached and occupied most of the convenient spots to sit and witness the climax. We got the place and witnessed the sunrise.
Post hiking activity, we were completely exhausted. So we walked back to the base of the hill and returned to our hotel to get freshen-up. Post breakfast, we headed to get shower and started our Hampi exploration around 9:15 am in the morning.
We started with Virupaksha temple where our guide told us brief history of the Hampi city and stories around Virupaksha temple. Whatever I vaguely remember, Lord Shiva was doing Dhyan for a long time and someone (I think Madan) tried to disturb him in-between. To punish the culprit, Lord Shiva killed Madan by opening his 3rd eye, which is known as mass destruction weapon of his. That’s how the temple got its name. while constructing the temple, King Krishna Dev Ray used various styles of constructing walls, flooring and basement including Chalukya, Pagoda, Chinese and Dravidiam.
We also met famous female temple elephant, which goes by the name “Lakshmi” and few monkeys running around inside the temple. Lakshmi blessed us. After listening to few other stories around Virupaksha temple including Ram-Sita’s engagement at one of the halls inside the temple, Shiva and Parvati’s wedding on the mountain near the temple, etc. we headed towards other temples of the city.
Initially, we visited Adilekadu Ganpati temple (Adilekadu means channa in hindi and chickpeas in English). Our guide told us the story that as Mughals destroyed most of the Hampi city; during destruction they damaged Ganpati’s stomach, which now looks like a giant Channa (this is what people of Hampi believe!). Hence, the temple got the name Channa Ganpati temple. After that we visited few more temples including Mustered Ganpati Temple (where Devi Parvati is hugging Ganpati from back), Laxmi Narsimha temple (where the murti of Narsimha was made by R K Krishna for 40 years as ordered by King Krishna Dev Ray using single piece of stone). Hence, it is also known as monolithic stone based murti. Most of the murtis in Hampi temples are made out of monolithic stones. Nearby we visited the Jalakanteshwar temple having shivling almost 30% immersed inside the water.
Then we visited Malyavantha Raghunath temple, which is famous for couple of things. Firstly, it is the only temple in India having the sitting murti of Lord Ram. Story behind the sitting murti of Lord Ram is that Ram along with Laxman rested at this place for 4 months during rainy season and hence all can be seen sitting inside the temple.
Secondly, Laxman was thirsty one day and couldn’t find water so he just fired an arrow inside the huge rock nearby and suddenly water came out of the rock. We actually saw a small place near temple where water was coming out of the huge rock.
This temple also had a good view of the city as it was situated at an elevated location from the city.
Our next stop was Vithhala temple, which is also very famous. The temple pandit transported the original statue of Vitthala to Maharashtra in Pandhari. The temple pandit at that time during mass destruction by Mughals wanted to preserve it. Now this Vitthala temple in Hampi doesn’t have Vitthala’s statue. Every year millions of Varkaris (Vitthala’s devotees) marched toward Pandhari, which is known as “Pandharichi Vari”. I never knew that the origin of the statue was in Hampi.
We also visited few lesser-known or rather less touristy places like Queen’s bath place (only for rare occasions), King Krishna Dev Ray’ Guest house built for VIPs at that time in history, small irrigation plant setup inside the guest house to provide 24x7 fresh drinking water to the guests in the guest house. King’s small palace in front of which yearly festival would happen, where top wrestlers used to wrestle in front of king to get diamonds or gold. King Krishna Dev Ray had 2 wives and both had a palace of their own. We visited the place where these palaces where built inside which there was a dedicated place to park royal elephants. These royal elephants will be used only during important occasions like festivals. I have never-seen such a gigantic and beautiful elephant parking space before.
All in all it was a memorial visit. A perfect spiritual gateway for families; especially for senior citizens. Happy travelling!
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