HERITAGE WALK REPORT

Submitted by
Elizabeth Abraham (1829015)
Rhythm chowdry (1829027)
The history of Bangalore dates back to around 4000 BCE. The region of modern
day Bangalore was a part of several south Indian kingdoms. Modern Bangalore
was begun in 1537 by a vassal of the Vijayanagara Empire, Kempe Gowda 1. Who
played a very important role in shaping the city in 1537. Later kempe gowda 2
built the four watch towers erected at strategic places of the city , serving as a
security towers for his kingdom .Considered to be the golden era of Bangalore, as
the kingdom flourished during this period of time . Culture, Art, Literature,
architecture were at its peak. There are many monolithic temples and shrines
constructed during that period and which still happens to exist in a working stage.
The area where we conducted our heritage walk is called basavanagudi, the literal
meaning of the place is BULL TEMPLE, i.e. cassava in Kannada means bull and gudi
means temple. One of the oldest areas of Bangalore city. The walk was divided
into 6 parts.
1) Doddaganapati temple
2) Bull temple
3) Bugle rock park
4) Kaaranji sri anjaneya temple
5) Mallikarjuna temple
6) Cave temple
These temples are still found to be in a working stage and has certain historic
significance, the unique form of architecture, art and inscriptions gives a clear
picture of the Dravidian style. The main temple here is the bull temple, which was
built in 1537AD by kempe gowda1, dedicated to the demi god Nandi, which is a
bull. This religious shrine is unique in itself. The temple boasts of a huge image of
Nandi (bull) that commemorates the mount of Lord Shiva. The giant image
extends to 5 meters in height and 6 meters in its length .the monolithic bull was
believed to be much older than the temple itself. The image of Nandi ‘Nandi’ has
been made out of a single granite stone. Initially the bull was grey and gradually it
turned black as devotees applied coconut oil to it. As believed the river Vishwa
bharathi originates from the feet of Nandi the bull. Also behind this enormous
image there is a Shiva lingam, which was built later. It is believed that the temple
was constructed to pacify a bull, who tried to gnaw away the entire groundnut
grown in the fields nearby. And since then the statue keeps on growing in size
further and further. So, a trident on the forehead of the bull which was placed
here as per lord Shiva’s advice to prevent it from growing any bigger. The bull
temple holds a groundnut fair every year known as Kadalekaye parishe in the
month of November or December.

In the vicinity of this temple, there is a shrine of lord ganesha known by the name
of Dodda Ganapati temple. The unique feature about this shrine is that the huge
image of lord ganesha is made out of 110 kilograms of butter, after every four
years .the amazing fact about it is that it never melts. Every 4 years the deity is
broken and distributed among the devotees.

Bull Temple
Doda Basavana Gudi (Nandi Temple) Is in the Bull Temple Rd, Basavana Gudi ,
South Bangalore. The sacred Bull (Nandi) inside the temple is a Hindu Demi God,
Nandi is meant to be the ‘vahana’ of lord Shiva. The tall and humungous Murthi is
about 15ft in height and 20ft in length. The Bull murthi has musical instruments
Carved on its foot; the idol also has a trident on its head idealizing Parvathi Devi
(Wife of Lord Shiva). Though the Nandi statue appears black in colour, but it was
originally grey in colour. But as the devotees applied charcoal and oil to the
statue, it blackened over the years. Bull Temple was built in the 15th Century by
Kempe Gowda under the Vijayanagara Empire in Vijayanagara architectural style.
The 30ft tall pillar in front of the temple is said to be there to give a physical signal
to pilgrims that there is a temple here. The historical relevance of the destination
is that according to native myths the area was well known for its rich cultivation
of ground nuts and peanuts. But there was a bull in the region, as the damage
grew bigger and bigger the farmers became worried and eventually decided to
build a temple for the bull.
 According to the myths the iron plate on the bull’s head has been placed
there by lord Shiva to stop the idol from growing.
 An inscription on the temple says that the Vrishabhavathi River flowing
from the western Part of Bangalore has its origins from a spring located
beneath the Bull Statue.
  The area surrounding the temple has a watch tower build by Kempe Gowda
2, the watch tower is amongst the four watch towers still left in the city. It
is said that earlier there were nine watch towers in the city instead of four
to maintain crime in the city, and four inside the Bangalore fort for
protection from spies.

Bugle Rock Park

South India is blessed with one of the most ancient formation of rock on earth
‘Bugle Rock’, the rock is dated between 2,500 to 3,000 million years old. One of
the watch towers build by Kempe Gowda 2 is on top of the Bugle Rock. Overall
the park has 25 different types of trees and is home to hundreds of fruit bats. The
Bugle Rock Park was developed by the Horticulture Department of the
Government of Karnataka and is maintained by Bangalore Development
Authority. Park hosts 3 major temples Bull Temple and Ganesha temple and one
more. The outer walls of an old water tank in the park is honoured with paintings
of some great personalities of Bangalore and Karnataka. The Park has a
population of hundreds or nearly thousands of fruit bats, these kinds of bats are
not harmful to humans. In the Bugle Rock Park a research is carried out on these
fruit bats by the bat biologists.

Ganesha Temple
Presentation The Dodda Ganapathi sanctuary is one of the most established
sanctuaries in Bangalore, the story behind the sanctuary is that there was a stone
cut in Ganesha icon and was reputed to have developed to the height of 18ft was
laid in Banasavanagudi 500 years prior.

Conclusion
The walk sorted out by Dr Geeta from Heritage goals was extremely instructive as
it took us through the brilliant period of Kempegowda 1 engineering. It
additionally helped us by acquainting us with some religious icons of
kempegowda time, as we visited the greatest Nandi Temple on the planet.
Engravings on the column before the sanctuary are generally unmistakable as
kempagowda himself. The walk helped us comprehend the geology of Bangalore
city, watch tower arrangement of Kempegowda Empire, Bugle shake Significance
to Earth. We additionally got to realized that Basavanaguddi is a standout
amongst the most top notch local location of Bangalore, the same number of
craftsmen, columnists, film stars and legislators live there.