Place · Nandi temple · India
Dodda Basavana Gudi (Bull Temple), Bengaluru
Also known as Bull Temple, Nandi Temple, Doḍḍa Basavana Guḍi, Dodda Basavanagudi, Basavanagudi Bull Temple
Dodda Basavana Gudi, the Bull Temple, is a small shrine in Basavanagudi, south Bengaluru, built for Nandi, Shiva's bull, rather than for Shiva himself. Wikipedia credits it to Kempe Gowda, founder of the city, in 1537, in the Vijayanagara style. Its granite monolith of Nandi, said to be among the largest anywhere, has been blackened by years of rubbing with charcoal and oil, and the tower over the shrine was added in the early twentieth century.
- Date
- 1537–None
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Patron dynasty
- Kempe Gowda chiefs (Vijayanagara feudatories)
- Material
- granite
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 12.943, 77.568
Worth knowing
Every year on the last Monday and Tuesday of the month of Karthika, farmers bring their first groundnuts to the bull at the Kadalekai Parishe; the legend says the temple was built to placate a bull that raided the groundnut fields.
The groundnut-raiding bull and the idol that grew until an iron peg was driven into it are legends.
Connections (2)
- Site withinBengaluru
The Bull Temple stands on Bull Temple Road in Basavanagudi, the south Bengaluru neighbourhood named after it, inside a park called Bugle Rock. Kempe Gowda, the city's founder, is credited with building it, and Basavanagudi was later developed, with Malleshwaram, as one of the extensions to the south and north of the old pete. Its annual groundnut fair, the Kadalekai Parishe, held on the last Monday and Tuesday of Karthika, brings farmers from other parts of the state to offer their first crop.
- Historical linkBangalore Fort, Bengaluru
Wikipedia credits Kempe Gowda I with both of these Bengaluru foundations of 1537: the mud fort around which he laid out the town's trading quarters, and the Vijayanagara-style shrine to Nandi at Basavanagudi to its south. Both reflect his position as a chieftain aligned with the Vijayanagara emperor Achyuta Deva Raya, building a town with its own defences and temples, which he went on to expand; the fort was later taken by British forces under Cornwallis in 1791.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Dodda Basavana Gudi", "Kadalekai Parishe" and "Bengaluru".
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