Mysore : The city of Palaces and Temples

After writing a series of posts on Sikkim, now i would like to share my travel experiences of other places of India, though my Sikkim story is not yet finished. I will write more on other relatively less visited and untouched parts of Sikkim in the days to come. 

Recently, I got an opportunity to travel to Mysore on an official trip of 05 days. Five day's trip meant, we had some time left for exploring the rich heritage and culture of the city. The idea was to make most of the trip by utilizing any opportunity, i got to wander and roam around the beautiful city.

With those thoughts, on a chilly morning of November, i started my journey  to Mysore from Patna via Kolkata and Bangalore. By 1:30 PM, my flight had landed at Bangalore Airport and from there, i boarded the bus for Satellite Bus Stand, from where one can get buses for Mysore any time. The journey from Airport to Bus Stand will offer you glimpses of infrastructure development, that has taken place in Bangalore over the years and has helped the city to join the coveted league of metropolitan cities of India. The Bangalore- Mysore road had numerous speed-breakers and one can imagine, what would have happened to a person sitting in the last row seat of a bus. By 5:00 PM, our bus had reached to Mysore covering the distance of around 150 km in three and half hours. Incidentally my hotel was at walking distance from the bus stand and the day after i came to know that i was residing in the close vicinity of royalty too, i.e. in the neighborhood of erstwhile rulers of Mysore. Mysore, apart from being a heritage city, is also on the way of becoming a world class modern city. It's a beautiful blend of old world charm reflected in palaces and centuries old temples and ultra-modern days reflected in high-tech campuses of some world class IT companies. In Mysore, one can feel the spiritualism in the air and connect to the almighty without being disconnected to the today's online world. It was pleasant for me to see some kids visiting the temples without their parents, as it was difficult for me to imagine myself visiting temple in that age without insistence and pressure of parents. Here, i would present before you the daily account of my mysore trip.

Day - 1

Next day, after completing my work, i along with other colleagues went to see the royal palace, however we were out of luck, as the visitors are not allowed to enter palace premises after 05:00 PM. The palace was in front of us in all it's evening glory, yet it was beyond our reach. May be the royalty didn't want to be disturbed by it's subjects at odd hours. Failed to meet the blue blood in our first attempt, we decided to pay visit to Lord Hanuman, who was present there in the august company of Lord Venkateshwara and Lord Shiva. These temples attract as many devotees and visitors in the evening, as the palace does during the day. One astonishing, but pleasant fact, which i noticed that people of different faiths were also visiting the temple with their kids for the blessings of Lord Hanuman. We were told that temple was very old and had earned the reputation of a wish-fulfilling temple, therefore, people from all the communities come to offer their prayers in the temple. I saw many burqa-clad women taking Yantram, a sacred thread from the priest for their kids to protect them from all the ailments and to ward- off all the evils.

Hanuman Temple at the entrance of Mysore Palace

Day - 2

Our next day's plan was to visit Chamundeshwari temple located on top of Chamundi hills, 12 Km away from our hotel in the morning and Mysore palace in the evening before 05:00 PM. As per the plan, we left for Chamundeshwari temple early in the morning and with in 15-20 minutes, we were in the temple premises. The ambience was highly spiritual over there and soon, we joined the fast growing serpentine queue of the devotees to have Darshan and offer our prayers to Goddess Chamundeshwari or Durga, the presiding deity of Mysore. The temple has always been hold in reverence and patronized by Kings of Mysore.

Chamundeshwari Temple, Mysore

The temple is considered one of  51 Shaktipeeth and one of the 18 Maha Shaktipeeth. The hairs of Devi Sati is said to have fallen here. For those, who are not aware of Shaktipeeth, i will try to explain in brief. The Shaktipeeth has it's origin in mythology of Prajapati Daksha's Yajna and Devi Sati's self-immolation. Devi Sati, angered by his father Daksha's decision of not inviting her husband Lord Shiva in the Yajna, set  herself ablaze by jumping in the Yajna fire. Lord Shiva then came to take the corpse of Devi Sati and wandered in sorrow of losing his beloved. Wherever the burnt body parts of Devi Sati fell, the places came to be known as  seats of Shakti or Shaktipeeth.

Intricate stone carvings on the temple wall attracts one's attention and i think, this is the specialty of all the temples of Mysore. These temples also tell the tales of grandeur and splendour of ancient South India. The statue of Goddess is made of gold and there are many gates made of silver. We took the blessings from the deity and then spent some time capturing our spiritual moments in camera. We also saw a giant statue of Nandi made of Granite. It must be one of the largest statue of Lord Shiva's bull mount.

                                                                               Nandi Statue                                             Image courtesy  en.wikipedia.org

After having Darshan of Goddess Chamundeshwari, we returned to our hotel. In the next post, we will take a tour of the majestic Mysore Palace and then Vrindavan Garden and Srirangpatna. Stay Connected.