Talakad is a scenic and spiritual center located in Mysore district, near T. Narasipura in Karnataka state. It was a capital of the Ganga Dynasty (350-999 AD). It was the capital of several dynasties that ruled over Karnataka.
During 1600 when Talakadu and Srirangapatna were under the Vijayanagar Empire. The death of the last ruler, Srirangaraya in 1610, provoked the Wodeyars of Mysore to declare war. As Srirangapatna fell, the Wodeyar ruler sent his soldiers to get the jewels of Srirangaraya’s widow, Alamelamma.
Alamelamma fled from the Mysore soldiers, when she saw she couldn’t escape, she is said to have jumped into the Cauvery, uttering the curse: "Let Talakad become sand. Let Malingi become a whirlpool. Let the Mysore king fail to beget heirs.”
River Cauvery is said to have taken a sharp turn eastwards towards Talakad, from its Southernly course. This buried the entire Talakad (about 850 acres) in sand. Since then Talakadu has been under a sea of sand and the family tree of Mysore rulers show a large number of adopted heirs, and the current Mysore heir Narashimaraja Wodeyar is childless too.
There are as many as 30 temples buried under the sand, very few are visible above sand. The Vaidyeshsara temple along with four others - Arkeshwara, Vasukishwara or Pataleshwara, Saikateshwara or Maraleshwara and Mallikarjuna are visible and constitute the Panchalingams here. These five ShivaLingams are said to represent the five faces of Shiva.
The Pataleshwara Shivalingam is said to change colors during the day (red in the morning, black in the afternoon and white in the evening). These temples are opened once in 12 years. It will be open this November – December 2006. I hope to go there and have a darshan.
Links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talakad
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talakad
16 comments:
A very beautiful place indeed. We sued to go there as part of school trips when I was in primary school...a lot of fun.
A note on the Mysore Wodeyar dynasty. Apparently, every other generation is adopted. So, the current heir is childless, his grandfather was childless, his great great grandfather was childless and so on.
Have been there thrice already...:) am going there for the 4th time on the 24th of December 2006 :)....
Wow...lucky you if you going there..after reading this post I also wants to go there...Next time when I will visit India I will try to make trip..any more places you recon?
This is very interesting. Do enjoy your trip. I am sure you would have good time out there.
Seems like a good place, would have been fun to go.
One thing about curses and sayings is: You can have a curse and it gets implemented; or you can take a series of situations and basically have a story to explain such a situation.
An example of a family in modern India with adopted heirs is the Tatas.
this post of yours is very informative... now i know why this place has been in the news lately :-)
Interesting Place... to visit.
december: Thanks for visiting my blog. You are right, every generation is adopted.
Casy: send me photos i will upload them.
ekawaaz: Sure.. i will let u know the places... when r u coming?
Balaji:Yes the trip would be intresting. But I cudn't make it. my friends made it. They enjoyed it.
Ashish: intresting to know about Tatas. Will search about that.
lady godiva: Thanks for visiting my blog n comments.
Jitender: thanks for visiting the blog.
Yes intresting place to visit.
A must visit place!
ah thanks ....Very soon...may end of Dec..if I get my hols get green signal from work..keeping finger cross...
wow, had been in Mysore, but never heard of that.. guess you hadnt started blogging then :)
But why is the temple open only once in 12 years? Any insight on that?
apun ka desh: yes it is a must visit places and many more :-)
ekawaaz: oh cul... there will b lots for you to visit out here. Are you from Karnataka ?
Pavan: Yea, i know i started blogging late :-). But it is still not late, you can visit the place.
Shark: No insight into that ... but will look up more and blog it :-)
Hi vin,
I am from Delhi, been to banglore twice loved the city, even got few friends working out there so most prob will visit them..
shark/vin:
i read this post before my trip. did not think much about it then. turns out that i was in talkad on 30/12 (and i still did not put two and two together!).
from what i heard, the story is that the river changes course or floods (don't remember which) every 12 years - don't know how - and the water takes the sand away for a few months, during which time all the buried temples are exposed.
- s.b.
the most possible accurate information about the cursed wodeyars.sad that this page didn't the very moment i typed the cursed wodeyars
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