MIXED BAG

THE   ANCIENT   ORIGINAL  LORD NARASIMHA   TEMPLE    By PragyanSharma Polavarapu   As mentioned earlier the area of Pathagutta temple is a vast stony surface formed by a series of big horizontally-lying boulders buried deep in the ground. Each boulder may perhaps be fifty meters long and only a little less wide! At some places two or three small room-size boulders are stacked one above the other by nature. Seeing the stacked boulders every person wonders how such gigantic stones were lifted at all. No humans can lift them. Simple rural people feel that it is nothing but one of god's great visible miracles. They feel that if they similarly arrange a little stack of stones one above another somewhere on the stony ground they surely would get god's grace. We can see scores of such tiny stone-stacks created with much devotion by devotees on the stony ground in isolated areas. Large numbers of people worship at pathagutta temple daily. Th...

G9-THE TEMPLE  AT PATHAGUTTA-1 By PragyanSharma Polavarapu As already mentioned the "Pathagutta temple" was the original abode of Lord Narasimha since centuries and is situated on a low almost ground level hillock which is on outskirts of Yadadri town. Let us call the temple only with the most beautiful Telugu name "Pathagutta"-- the most beautiful name spoken by uncounted millions of Telugu people for more than a century i.e. since the times when big temples with “gopurams” were constructed a century ago on the giant monolithic Yadadri hill . The temple is  simple and unostentatious without towers  even in its renovated state but is vast  inside with big RCC roofed halls, partitions and railings made of bright steel tubes ,smooth floors  ,electric lighting etc. There is a great “Dhwaja Stambham”(god almighty’s flag post).  The original   temple in old times must have had great reputation in surrounding areas f...

A MOST BEAUTIFUL TEMPLE IN A RURAL AREA NEAR YADADRI By PragyanSharma Polavarapu In the vicinity Yadadri there are other temples for Lord Narasimha one of the great earthly incarnation of Lord Vishnu the god almighty of the universe of billion galaxies .The temples may be small but are as holy as the great  Yadadri . The same lord of billion galaxies lives in the small temples also. I now write about the temple on a hill at  Venkatapuram village which is about ten kilometers from Yadadri town. I had not the fortune of visiting this most picturesque temple on a hill with scores of caves formed by giant sized boulders and where lions might roam if it was in deep forest. We do not know but tens of thousands years ago when there were real dense forests all over the area lions might have actually lived in the caves . But in present days it is an agricultural area with bald boulder-ridden hills without any dense forest cover. It is very picturesque agricultur...

  BOULDER RIDDEN HILLS-2 By PragyanSharma Polavarapu A LITTLE OF GEOLOGY  There are some gigantic bald hills (not boulders but entire hills)- --Bhongir hill, Yadadri hill,Hanamkonda "Ekasila" hill (Warangal district) etc. Let us learn how the bald hills i.e. single stone dome hills of colossal size are formed. Scientists say that such hills are among the oldest hill types in the world and were created hundreds of millions of years ago. Scientists say that age of earth may be around 4500 million years i.e. 450 crore years! At that early time, the outer stone layers of earth (crust layers) were very soft like wheat flour dough but extremely hot. Scientists say that lying under this soft bending “plastic” outer stone layer --( extending for thousands of square miles in area on earth’s surface at that time)--- ,there was another extremely hard stone mass which did not soften and bend. This underlying hard stone mass pushed up the soft outer layers .This was a very slow proce...

G6-BOULDER  RIDDEN HILLS-1   By PragyanSharma Polavarapu The beautiful boulder ridden bare hills of this upland region( in Nalgonda district of Telangana state ) have indescribable beauty and are in complete contrast to the thickly forested high hills of Godavari area. The bare hills and the dozens of big boulders lying near the hills make the area look very pleasing to the eye under the blue skies and fluffy white clouds and the green farm lands.  The boulders do not have any sharp edges and are rounded at the corners due to lying for millions of years in heat and cold and due to erosion in strong winds, sand storms and torrential rains for millions of years.  Millions of little stone crystals   of the size of sand particles get separated from the boulders and fall down unseen all through the year. The boulder surface disintegrates slowly in decades and centuries and millenniums. These boulders saw rise and fall of ...

G5-MYTHOLOGY--STORY  OF A WICKED KING-2 By PragyanSharma Polavarapu Then a most wonderful thing happened . With unbearable and frightening thundering sounds the pillar broke vertically and out came a most frightening form jumping out of the pillar. It had a shining body drenching entire area in dazzling light. It had a heavy human body and a frightening angry head of a lion with wide open mouth and started roaring violently as if hungry . It searched for the frightened and shivering king and caught hold of him. It was far bigger than the dazed king who himself was of heavy build. It dragged the frightened king to the high threshold and with wild angry roars sat on the threshold, tore open the stomach of the king and started drinking the king's blood ! It was a most fearful sight! Even the gods who appeared there were too frightened to go near this angry lion form of Lord Vishnu.  The boy too was frightened but gained his composure and sang hymns to the god. The angry lion- g...

G4-MYTHOLOGY--STORY OF A WICKED KING-1 By PragyanSharma Polavarapu   Lord Vishnu is the name by which the one great god amighty of universe is called by hindus. he is like a most hansome warrior-prince living in palaces of gold and cystal in the clouds . but he is so compassionate that he flies to aid of poor and helpless people leaving all his pleasures. he considers it a great privelage to serve the poor and helpless people of earth. he occassionally incarnates himself on earth as an unconquerable warrior ,sometimes as a very fierce warrior-- specially to eliminate the wickedest most unconquerable villains and saves the poor and weak. Lord narasimha the fierce hal lion and half human god is one such incarnation . after eliminating a most wicked unconquerale king( a mighty king who could not be conquered even by gods) he entirely cooled down and transformed himself into a most kind and smiling lion god! But he possessed a remnant of vexation dejected by the feeling that hum...

G3-THE COMPASSIONATE  SAINT--YADA MAHARISHI By PragyanSharma Polavarapu The new Yadadri temple with its sculptural extravaganza of  "gopurams", corridors, pillars and the many  statues of the most holy divine gods  creates an atmosphere  of the  very real heaven “Vaikunta” of Lord Vishnu that exists in the clouds. The holy Yadadri is  about 60 kilometers from Hyderabad. The Lord Narasimha legend is  very popular throughout India since centuries as mythology (the  highly poetic “Puranas”) declare that Lord Narasimha is one of the ten incarnations of god almighty of universe appearing on the planet earth to eliminate extremely evil persons who are unconquerable by human effort. There are  two  important temples(simple temples in rural surroundings) devoted to worship of Lord Narasimha and which are a few kilometers away from  the most dazzling Yadadri temple on Yadagirigutta. One of the temple...

G2-MARVELLOUS   NEW YADADRI--2 By PragyanSharma Polavarapu In the past during last 20 or 30 years our family visited Yadagirigutta about ten times —sometimes to attend marriages at the temple and  sometimes in special visits by our family. We went there either from Warangal where we lived earlier for thirty years or from Hyderabad where we shifted fifteen years back. In those days there were old guest houses, winding lanes and small crowded bazaars on the hill top .Now the hill top is converted by the engineers into a smooth gigantic  rectangular rock table  on which the imposing temple towers ,the “ Gopurams” stand and the long corridors with sculptured pillars exist ! Only the temple towers and the "Prakaarams" (sculptured fort like surrounding walls) exist on the vast  rectangle-shaped solid rock plane. It has to be mentioned that to  many people the memories of the old "Gutta"( temple hill Yadagiri Gutta) are dear .During our journeys from Warang...

G1-MARVELLOUS  NEW YADADRI-1 By PragyanSharma Polavarapu Yadagirigutta(new name Yadadri) near to Hyderabad(India) on the Hyderabad-Warangal highway is a great temple loved and revered by people of all neighboring districts since untold generations . The devotion of simple village folks like the farming communities visiting in thousands every day throughout the year is proof about the great reverence in which the god of this hill top temple Lord Narasimha is held since untold centuries . The image of the great god was first discovered centuries ago on the hill top in a deep cave among big boulders . Inside the new latest dazzling Yadadri temple the architects have not in any way disturbed the "original den" formed by the ancient boulders. The architects only securely enclosed and enveloped the original cave with a new outer sculptured temple tower. The new "Yadadri" temple is constructed in an extremely beautiful dazzling classical form like big old south Indian temp...