Travel Photo: Decorated Pillars of Lepakshi Temple
Last weekend, I took my motorcycle out of Bangalore after a long two year gap. I was definitely rusty, but my motorcycle was just getting the feel of its brand new engine (the old one clocked 1,65,000 kms). As it is a new engine, I cannot open throttle as yet and hence wanted to choose a destination that wasn’t too far from Bangalore and that wouldn’t tempt me to hit the gun to the metal. The destination that I had in mind was the Veerbhadra temple at Lepakshi that is located near Hindupur in Andhra Pradesh, but at just 5 kilometres from the Karnataka border.
People speak Telugu, Kannada and Hindi (owing to the heavy Muslim influence) here and the temple speaks a language of arts and sculpting from the mighty Vijayanagar empire. Bearing a close resemblance to the Vittala temple of Hampi, this rock cut temple is known for its magical pillars, the Naga protecting the Shivalinga and the fact that Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva share the inner sanctum sanctorium. This is definitely an off-beat day trip from Bangalore and one that is heavily recommended if you are a temple lover. More pictures and the entire experience in the full blog post that will follow soon. Do stay tuned.
