Temple at "Soorya"

Last Sunday and Monday, me and couple of my friends went driving for a pilgrimage to a couple of temples in western ghats; Dharmastala and Kukke Subramanya. Enroute to these places, we visited a small wind farm and the historic temple of Belur.

I shall write in detail about the trip some other time. But here i am writing about an unique place we visited on the second day of the trip. This was a temple in the town of Ujire in Dakshin Kannada district, about 15 Km north of Dharmastala.

On sunday evening at Dharmastala, my dear friend Kiran gets a call from his mother asking him to visit the "Soorya" (sun) temple near Ujire. Apparently his mother had made a wish (ಹರಿಕೆ) that if gets a job in UK, she would ask him to visit this place. Thank god, he did get a Job in UK. So since we were anyway very close to this place, his mother asked him to visit the place.

I was surprised that there is a soorya (ಸೂರ್ಯ, sun) temple in Karnataka. I had only heard of a sun temple at Konark in Orissa. When enquired with kiran, he said, he has no idea and his job was just to visit the temple the next day as per his mother's instruction. Even i was eager to find out where and what was this temple.

After the darshan of lord shiva the Sunday evening and again on monday morning, we set out to this "Soorya" temple. We entered the Ujire town and enquired a few people for the road to the temple. Nobody knew where it was. Finally, we asked a taxi driver. Even he was surprised about a "Sun" temple in his town. Thankfully, kiran told him that people offer mud idols there if their wish (ಹರಕೆ) is granted. Then, the taxi driver smiled and told us that it is not the sun temple but the place is called "SOORYA"( ಸೂರ್ಯ). This was a Shiva/Rudra temple in the place called "SOORYA".

So we three "champions" set out on the muddy and bumpy ghat roads to the "SHIVA/RUDRA" temple at "SOORYA". Thanks to the wish kiran's mother made, we were blessed to see a beautiful place. Though the roads were bad and it was raining heavily, it was quite a sight. It was so beautiful. It was so good to be there.


We did manage to reach the temple. It was really pouring heavily when we reached there. After a little while, the rain stopped and we got out of the car with our umbrella and headed towards the temple. There were not many people out there.

The deity in the temple was "SOORYA SADASHIVA RUDRA DEVARU" (ಸೂರ್ಯ ಸದಾಶಿವ ರುದ್ರ ದೇವರು). It was very interesting for me. The village where the temple is situated is called "Nada grama" (ನಡ ಗ್ರಾಮ). But the name of the deity is derived from the place called "Soorya". The localites told me that "ಊರಿನ ಹೆಸರು ಸೂರ್ಯ ಹಾಗು ಗ್ರಾಮದ ಹೆಸರು ನಡ ಗ್ರಾಮ". It means the name of the place is "Soorya" in the village called "Nada grama". I am yet to figure out the difference between them. Anyways i dint have much time to enquire more about it.

More interesting was the temple. The main deity here is Shiva/Rudra. The people who perform pooja here are all Madhwas (They belong to the madhwa community, a sub caste of Brahmins who are Vaishnavites) . No doubt the deity is called Rudra devaru .(orthodox madhwas call shiva as Rudra devaru). It was a clean and pretty big temple built in traditional coastal architecture.


The belief here is that, you make a wish and if it comes true, you have to go to the temple in person and offer to the deity an associated idol(s) made of mud and go to the nearby kalyani(stepped well) and another small temple and offer prayers. There is a specific mud idol associated with every wish. Provided the wish is granted, one has to purchase the idol and offer it to the God there. The list of mud idols is exhaustive. They are very specific too. It starts from dogs, cats, to lorry,bus to computer,mobile phones to masonry and RRC roofs to even Beedi bundle.


It is quite strange that the list of offerings can be so specific and so exhaustive. One can imagine that there may be myriad wishes of people. But it beats me to imagine the list of offerings associated with such wishes. Obviously, the fields of wishes can be still far far greater than the associated list of offerings.

So as instructed by his mother, my friend Kiran purchased a small mud table and chair and offered it to the god. There is a small rite associated with the offering. One is supposed to keep it over some rice and offer it at a specific place.

From there we went to the Kalyani (stepped well) outside the temple. It is one of the most beautiful Kalyanis that i have seen in the recent past. It is covered by vegetation on all sides. There is a small paved path way leading to the kalyani. The kalyani is about 55 feet deep and the water is blue in colour. Yes, the water was blue in colour. It was really beautiful. I don't know exactly why it was blue in colour. But i think it is because of the thick vegetation all around and its depth.

We spent about 10 minutes near that kalyani and went to a small prayer place. It is basically a small temple like structure where people stand and pray.

We finished all that and returned to the main temple. After performing the sankalpa for Rudrabhisheka (ರುದ್ರಾಭಿಷೇಕ) there we left towards Kukke suramanya again in the beautiful but bumpy roads.

Without debating normative issues of beliefs here, i can say that we were really lucky to visit such a beautiful place in an obscure temple village.

(Few pictures of the trip : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20660&id=1020055458&l=2f04df83ca )