From Wiki - The main temple at Nanjangud is dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva, also called Sri Nanjundeshwara, "The God who drank poison" to save the earth. In Hindu mythology, there is the event of Samudra Manthan, where the Gods and demons churned the ocean in search of the ambrosia. During this churning, poison emanated first, followed by ambrosia. To prevent the poison from spreading across the universe and to destroy it, Shiva came to the rescue and drank it up. His wife Parvati then held his throat tightly to prevent the poison from spreading to the rest of his body and killing him. Narada held his mouth so that he did not vomit it out. The poison remained in his throat, making it blue in colour. For this reason, Shiva is also called Neelakantha, or "the blue-throated one". Nanjanagud literally means "the place where Nanjundeshwara resides."
The temple is very big inside, with architecture from the 9th century. Around the periphery of the temple there are numerous sculptures of gods and goddesses. I asked a couple of priests who they were and I got varied answeres; one was that they all were avatars of Lord Shiva and the other was they are different gods attending the assembly of Gods.
As the temple is situated at the banks of River Kapila, there are large numbers of devotees dipping in the water. They also have a large new Shiva statue outside the premises of the temple. It’s a beautiful statue, yet looks a bit animated.
Temple from outside:
The Gopuram:
Devotee rolling on the floor around the entire temple:
Statues:
Pillar structure inside the temple:
Lord Shiva statue:
Dear Sir / Madam,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the nice pictures of Shiva's different forms from the great temple in Nanjangud. It is one of the very few temples that has beautiful statues of a significant number of Shiva's various forms, located on the left side of big Nandi (as we face Sri Nandi). It would be a great help if you can publish the photographs of all the other forms of Shiva in this temple.
Regards