Origin of Mandya

I got one interesting article on How the name "Mandya" came to Mandya city, all these days I was knowing only about Mandyavya Rushi, but check out the other interesting facts here

Origin Of Name




Mandya district is part of large plateau from Mysore to the edges of Easter Ghats. Therefore, there are not many legends describing the origin of the district as such, but there are quite a few legends describing the origin of the place.



Mandya seems to have been known as ‘Vedaranya’ and later, as ‘Vishnupura’ in Kritayuga. It is said that a rishi (sage) was doing a penance here and installed an image of God Janardana and was said to be teaching wild beast to pronounce the sacred word, VEDA. On this account, the place came to be known as ‘Vedaranya’.



Several years later, but during the same yuga, another rishi, who was residing here, setup an image of the God Sakaleshwara swami and Lord Vishnu, it is said, appeared to him. The place was thereafter renamed as ‘Vishnupura’. Another account says that towards the age of Dwapara yuga, king by name Indravarma, who had not issues, came to this place in the hope of getting a son. His prayers were granted, and his son Somavarma built a fort and an agrahara at this place and gave it the name Mandevemu, which, it is believed has been corrupted into Mandya. It is also said that in ancient days, a great and popular sage, called Mandavya, lived in the area doing tapas and the place came to be called Mandya after his name.




A more recent account is that the village was granted by Krishna devaraya of Vijayanagar in 1516 to Govinda Raja, twelfth in descent from Anantacharya, a disciple of the religious reformer, Ramanujacharya, and a distinguished devotee of Lord Venkatesha of Tirupati. The first Brahmin families, which settled down here, named the place Mandya after their native place near Tirupati.


HISTORICAL TIMES



Gangas:-


The Gangas ruled the central and southern parts of the old Mysore State, including the Mandya District and parts of the Cauvery basin. They ruled from about 2nd Century A.D to about the beginning of the 11th Century A.D. The region ruled over by the Ganga Kings was know as Gangavadi. The Ganga kings who ruled over Gangavadi, numbered about thirty three.



Cholas:-


In Rakkasaganga’s time, the Cholas under the command of Rajendra Chola, son of the reigning king Rajaraja chola, succeeded in capturing Talakad, the capital of the Gangas. This event seems to have taken place in 1004 A.D. Rakkasaganga continued to rule as feudatory of the Cholas upto 1024 A.D. The whole region, south of the river Cauvery from Coorg and east of a line from near Srirangapatna to Nandidurga, was overrun by the Cholas and annexed to their empire; the area was under their rule for about 100 years.

Hoysalas:-


Bittideva(afterwards called Vishnuvardhana) retook Talakad and drove the cholas out of Mysore. His general Ganagaraja, who was a descendent of the old Ganga kings, effected the capture of Talakad. Hoysalas ruled till about 1346, when Hoysala kingdom was annexed by the Vijayanagar rulers.


Vijayanagar Empire:-



Narasa, the founder of the third dynasty in Vijayanagar, captured Srirangapatna in about 1495. In around 1610 Raja Wodeyar succeeded in gaining possession of Srirangapatna from Tirumala-II.



Wodeyar dynasty:-


Raja Wodeyar (1578 – 1617) “speedily subduing Tirumala Raja seated himself on the jeweled throne in Srirangapatna and gaining the empire received obeisance from all kings.” Raja Wodeyar made Srirangapatna his capital and extended his possessions south of the present Mysore and Mandya districts and also captured several places towards the north from Jagadeva Raya of Channaptna.



check the details here http://www.mandya.nic.in/

Trip to BR Hills

On Saturday 10 th of Novemver 2007 we have gone to Biligiri Rangana Betta ( BR Hills) with my friends Kytha , and Ravi ,…other friends who are supposed come, escaped but trip did not cancel..
We decided to go to BR Hills via T Narasipur – Yalandur , we left mandya around 11 Am and we reached BR Hills at 4 PM its about 120 Km from Mandya.

Few things about BR Hills

The Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple wildlife sanctuary (BRT), is a little gem of astonishing bio-diversity. It spreads over an area of 540 Sq. km and is located between 110 43I and 120 08I N latitudes and 770 01I and 770 15I East longitude. Located at the eastern most edge of the Western ghats, BRT is considered as biogeographic bridge between the Western and the Eastern ghats. The hills are in the Yelandur taluk of Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka. The hills are contiguous with the Satyamangalam range southwards, in the Erode district of Tamil Nadu. The area is 90 km from Mysore and 180 km from Bangalore. It is connected by road, one from Yelandur and the other via Chamarajanagar. The hills are located at the easternmost edge of the Western Ghats and support diverse flora and fauna in view of the various habitat types supported. A wildlife sanctuary of 322.4 km² was created around the temple on 27 June 1974, and enlarged to 539.52 km² on 14 January 1987. The sanctuary derives its name “Biligiri” either from the white rock face that constitutes the major hill crowned with the temple of Lord Rangaswamy, or from the white mist and the silver clouds that cover these lofty hills for a greater of the year. BRT has an amazing diversity of vegetation types such as scrub, dry and moist deciduous, evergreen, sholas and high-altitude grasslands. This diversity of forest types supports a rich variety of fauna, avi-fauna, insects and butterflies. BRT is also known for its many endemic species of plants including valuable medicinal ones. BR Hills constitute a live link between the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats facilitating an active exchange of gene pools between them. Thus this sanctuary serves as an important biological bridge for the biota of the entire Deccan plateau. BR hills along with the Male-Madeshwara (MM Hills) range are a distinctly unusual mountain range running north-south amidst the plains of Bangalore-(~900 m) Mysore-(~600m) and Krishnagiri-(~450 m) surfaces. The peaks of these lofty ranges rise as high as 1800 m (BR hills 1400 to 1800 m; MM Hills 1000 to 1200 m). The highest hill is Kattari Betta, at 1800 MSL. Biogeographically, BRT sanctuary is very uniquely located. Between 11° and 12° N along its north-south running chain. Western Ghats projects itself in a north-easterly direction and meets the splintered hills of the Eastern Ghats at 78° E. This unique extension of Western Ghats constitutes a live bridge between the Eastern and Western Ghats with the sanctuary located almost in the middle of this bridge. Thus, the biota of BRT sanctuary can be expected to be predominantly of Western Ghats in nature with significant proportion of eastern elements as well.

For more details visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biligirirangan_Hills

After visiting temple we went in search of Lodge,..then we saw board aboout Jungle Resort Lodge in K.Gudi its about 20 Kms from BR Hills,.
We decided to go there but after traveling few Km my friends are afraid to move forward, because the forest is very dense and we not seeing any vehicle form long time in that road. So we turned back and while coming we saw A school Vivekananda Residential Insitution
I need to talk about this institute , this was headed by Dr. Sudharshan and its giving educations to tribal childrens ,..

When we are searching room there we found one person who is from Mandya working as teacher there ,..and He helped a lot in all the way ,.. his name is Sundaresh..

At last we got a room there ,..we drink coffe in Sundaresh house and wathched Etv news in dish Tv ,the speciality of news is ..Mr Yediurappa was about to become CM,..after a long fight…
We had dinner in Biligiri dharshin and came back to room ,..i was roaming in ground till mid night,. ,..
And morning we wake up and went inside jungle ,..we went to K Gudi but could not able to see any animals but we saw one old Temple “Kyatheswara” in K Gudi ,..and my friend kyatha is very happy that he found his Family gods Temple,..He said a story about there ancestors who have moved from Chamraj nagar to bangalore ,..The story is very intresting “ Once the Palegara of that place wanted to marry a girl in this village it seems and the elders did not agree to that,..and they shifted from Chanmraj nagar to Mandya in the night ,..leaving all there properties in that village and while coming they got a lake in between and they prayed god that if they reach safely they will name For helder son as “Kyathe gowda” and for younger son “Boregowda” and still you can see these familys in the place of Shivalli,Panakanalli,villages..near Mandya “

After K Gudi we saw .the view point which is really a fantastic place ,..we can see nice picture of mountains view from there…

While coming we came via Kollegal – mallavalli – Mandya

BR Hills was a nice place for treckking,..Bird watching,.If you plan to go there plan for at least 2 days…

Journey to Hoysala temples in Mandya

Jounrney to old Hoysala tempels in Mandya.


Check the picture here
http://picasaweb.google.com/praveen.kulakarni/MandyaTrip

The journey begin from Mandya in My New car Turbo DLG..
My freinds as come from Bangalore to Mandya in bus and later joined me in Mandya.

our journey begin at 9 from Mandya on 21st OCt Sunday 2007,
Started with Tiffin in Shivalli(Dudha) near Mandya and went to Melkote


MELUKOTE:

Yoga Narasimha Temple:
After driving up a few narrow winding streets we reached the parking place at the foot of the hill.We reached Melukote at 10.30 am. On the top of the hill there is a temple of Yoga Narasimha. To reach here you have to take big steps( half way you can go by vehicles . There are around 30 to 40 steps to reach temple. Temple is 1,777 mtr above from the sea level. After reaching the temple we could able to see a beautiful nature surrounding. It is a 1000year old temple and here we could not find that beautiful architecture still is looks good.We spent 30min in the temple.

AKKA TANGI KOLA:
This KOLA(pond) is near to the temple.There are two ponds in one pond there is dirty water(in Akka kola) and in another pond there is clean water(TANGI kola). We asked the reason for this to one old lady she told "The younger sister was willing to build a pound but elder sister was not interested for this. At last both built a different ponds, in younger sister's pond there was a clean water but in elder sister's pond dirty water because she was not interested for this". The main thing is we could able to differentiate both pond water.

Tiru Narayana:
Then we head in to the town there a big Tiru Narayana temple. We parked the car and started walking towards the temple, on the way we got a beautiful KALYANI (water pond surrounded by steps). Here people were taking bath and praying to god. After that we entered to temple, this is a large temple surrounded by an open veranda in side that there were so many beautiful carved pillars. We spent some time there and took many photographs. I asked Praveen "how was they able to do this type of design in stone?" He gave a smile and replied they were intelligent.
Now its 12 noon, we left for the Hosaholalu its nearly 27km from here near K.R.Pete.



Hosaholalu:

We reached K.R.Pete at 12.45 and had lunch and started driving towards Hosahoralu. It is trikuta (three shrined) Lakshminarayana temple. Here the temple was closed and we could able to see only from the outside. The outer wall is with the beauties of deities made up of stone. Here i surprised by seeing this sculptures. It is worth going here. And again I asked the same question to praveen "how was they able to do this type of design in stone?" and got the same reply.We spent more than 45min here.
Praveen explained me some sculptures meaning. Before this i never used to enjoy in temple but this time i enjoyed and got to know so many things. Thanks to Praveen.

Govindanahalli:

This was our main destiny to see, whole journey started to see this panchalingeswara temple...

Its nealy 15km from the K.R.Pete . Its difficult to reach here by bus and we did't see a single board to show the way.Here we had to struggle little bit to reach here.

On the way we saw an accident between bike and Maruthi Omni ,..just a small hit from bike caused lot of damage to maruthi omni car,..The bike person head has come out and the child sitting inside maruthi got fractured..

So,..started driving carefully.......

We reached the temple by 2.30 and here also temple was closed. Its a very big temple panchkuta (five shrined) Shiva temple. In the entrance two Veera bhadhreshwara sculpture and opposite to the main entrance a beautiful sculpture Nandi. We spent 20min by seeing out side the temple after that one lady came and opened the door of the temple. Inside the temple there are mainly five Lingu's situated with the different names and there are number of lined carved pillars and as usual so many sculptures on the wall.

One thing which i wanted to tell is,.. we should give proper publicity to these type of places,..

till we come here we never thought it will be such a nice place with cool atmosphere,...

Govt. and also the people should give proper publicity and help to preserve these old temples....


From here we started journey back to Bangalore at around 3.15pm. On the way to mandya we stopped in AALE MANE(the place to prepare jaggery) near Bedara Halli pandava pura distict. HeY.. we had a mugs of nice sugercane juice and fresh jaggery(it will be in jelly state).

Even thoe I had these alemane experence many times in my child days , its a different exp for my bangalore fnds,..
Even I enjoyed a lot ....

Please see the pics in this URl
Picture of trip