Rich in culture and heritage, Lepakshi is a small village in Andhra Pradesh that embeds a lot of mythological stories. Lepakshi is 120 km from Bangalore and makes a perfect weekend gateway. One fine evening, me and my sister made plans for Lepakshi and it turned out to be one of the most exciting and memorable trips. We started at 4.30 in the morning from Banglore and caught the bus to Hindupur. We reached at around 8.45 to Lepakshi after boarding the local bus from Hindupur.
The first thing we did was have our breakfast right outside the main Lepkashi temple. There are not many options available for eating in and around the town but it's manageable. We started our journey of exploring the main temple first. The Veerabhadra temple is famous for its architecture which was the magnificent work of the artists of the Vijaynagara Empire.
The Nagalinga is one of the major attractions of this temple which is said to be carved by local sculptors out of a single stone. There are endless rows of pillars, carvings, temples, meditation chambers, and temple towers all inside the temple. At least an hour is needed to completely explore the temple.
As we were trying to head for our next place, a fellow travel enthusiast started asking us questions about whether we saw certain things inside the temple which only made us realize we have missed major attractions inside. We headed back inside and then the fun began. There were no guides available at the temple to guide at that time. We also don't know whether there are guides usually. But there are also no signs or boards to guide you through history. We had to rely on the information from the fellow traveler to look for the things we missed. It was a treasure hunt indeed looking for all these spots in the temple. We even had to take help from youtube videos to pinpoint the exact locations of interest. Word of advice - read carefully the history of the temple and familiarize yourself with the attractions to see so that you don't miss out on anything.
The first wonder of the temple was the floating pillar which doesn't contact the ground. You might find people trying to pass newspaper or dupatta from underneath the pillar. However, when we tried it, we were not able to pass it from one end. A person nearby told us that in order to understand the mystery of the pillar one British officer tried to dislocate one side of the pillar and that's when he found the entire temple shaking and had to leave the attempt. But because of that incident, the one corner of that pillar is kinda touching the ground. But you can still see the space underneath the pillar.
The bleeding eyes of Virupanna are the second wonder of the temple. We literally struggled to find this one. The legend says that King ordered to blind Virupanna and the furious Virupanna gouged out his own eyes and threw them at one of the temple walls. Those two blood-like stains are still present on the wall near the Kalyana mandapa.
The third wonder is the footprint of Sita which is said to be imprinted on the ground when Ravana was forcefully taking Sita to Sri Lanka. This was the place Sita rested for a while. People say this footprint is always covered in the water throughout the year and the water is like paying respect to Sita. You might miss this spot if not paid attention to. You can find plenty of information on the web about this magnificent temple of Lepakshi.
From the temple, we started for the Jatayu theme park. The huge statue of jatayu is mounted on the rock and there is also a temple on top of this rock. One has to take stairs to this point which offers a beautiful viewpoint.
The Basavanna or the Nandi Bull sculpture was the next point. The Nandi is carved out of one block of granite and is also a major attraction of Lepakshi. There is also a beautiful pond in this place.
The more you will read about Lepakshi you will come across more and more legends. One would be surprised with the number of tales it has around history. This place has to be there on your travel list if you are a real traveler.
How to reach Lepakshi:
Lepakshi is accessible by road, bus, and train easily. There are frequent trains from Bangalore which takes around 2 hours to reach Hindupur. Also from Bangalore, there are regular bus services that one can take to Hindupur which will cost you approximately 100-150 depending on the bus. It takes around two to three hours to reach Hindupur from Bangalore. From Hindupur bus station there are both buses and share autos available which will cost Rs. 20/- and will take approximately 20 min to reach Lepakshi.