Malleswaram Temple Trail
Malleswaram is one of the most famous and oldest localities of Bangalore. This area has lots to offer people with varied interests - local road-side shopping for shoppers, spiritual enthusiasts have lots of ancient temples to soak into divinity, art lovers have lots of creativity to admire all along the mural trail and foodies have varieties of street food for an enriching culinary experience.
For art lovers, I have already published a blog on Malleswaram Mural trail. It is a long walk but totally worth.
For those with a religious bent of mind, there are lots of temples here and few of them are very old built during medieval ages. But you will be fascinated with the architecture and grandeur of these temples. In this blog, let me take you along a temple trail I did recently with my dad.
My dad had few temples in his mind which he wanted to take me, and I had listed down few based on what I had seen in social media off late. With this list, we started at 7 am from home to Malleswaram. Our plan was to complete temple trail before 12 pm to avoid scorching sun heat.
We started our temple trail from the most famous – Circle Maramma temple (18th Cross Malleswaram).
Circle Maramma Temple
This temple dedicated to Goddess Maramma is located on one side of the circle and Maharani college on other side. This temple cannot be missed for those driving from Yeshwanthpur/Mathikere side towards M G Road. You will find major traffic congestion in this circle on Fridays since this day is considered auspicious for Goddess Maramma.
You will find artistic sculptures of the deity in her various forms on the outer walls of the temple. This is the main attraction for visitors. And on the right side of the temple when you exit after darshan you will find a huge statue of goddess killing Mahishasura.
Please note that in most of these temple taking pictures inside the premises is not allowed. Hence, I have shared pictures of the deity wherever I was allowed to take only.
Next my dad wanted to take me to the TTD temple where there is a Lord Venkateshwara temple and people can book their TTD darshan tickets also. This temple is located right next to Chowdiah Memorial.
While we were walking, we came across the famous Sankey tank where there was a rush of morning walkers.
As we were walking along 16th cross road, we saw an arc of Sri Jala Gangamma Temple. Since we were on a temple trail today, we decided to take a slight detour and visit this temple.
Sri Jala Gangamma Temple
This temple houses the deity of Goddess Jala Gangamma. Priest was not there to explain. We asked the gardener outside if we could take pictures and he gave his consent.
We then walked towards TTD temple. Enroute, we came across Chowdiah Memorial which is right next to TTD.
Venkateshwara Temple
This temple is dedicated to Lord Venkateshwara. This is built and managed by TTD(Tirupathi Thirumala Darshan) trust. In the main temple, Goddess Padmavathi and another Goddess who are residing on the left and right side of Lord Venkateshwara. And while climbing the temple steps you will find other deities – Lord Krishna and Radha, Lord Hanuman, Lord Rama Lord Lakshmana and Goddess Seeta.
After completing our darshan, we were served curd rice as prasadam which tasted yummy.
By now we were hungry as we had walked a lot since early morning. So we started walking back straight up on 16th cross, temple street road upto Sampige road. On 15th cross we saw Paakashala and many morning walkers were having breakfast there.
Our Breakfast @Paakashala
So, without a second thought, we got into Paakashala and ordered Set dosa and idli vada. Both tasted well but the highlight of our breakfast was the filter coffee which was totally refreshing.
Our next set of temples were located right next to Paakshala at 15th cross Malleswaram – Kaadu Mallikarjuna temple, Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple, Ganggamma devi temple and Dakshin Kashi temple. This lane is called temple street Malleswaram.
Kaadu Malleswaram Temple
This is one of the oldest temples in the locality constructed using Dravidian style of architecture. This temple was built by Venkoji (brother of Maratha King Shivaji). Malleswaram gets its name after this temple. This temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva who is adored as Mallikarjuna. Hence this temple is also called as Kaadu Mallikarjuna temple.
Gangamma Devi Temple
This temple is dedicated to Goddess Gangamma representing river Ganga. The annual Gangamma jatre (religious fair) has been a tradition since 1928 and is currently held in the month of June around this temple. This jatre is held over a 3 day period and Goddess Gangamma will be decorated with colorful flowers with grandeur.
Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Temple
This temple houses and udbhava(means formed by itself) Murthy of Sri Narasimha Swamy. Please note that for all these 3 temples you need to take steps and they are built over a hillock.
Dakshina Mukha Nandi Teertha Kalyani Kshetra
This is the only temple where there are no steps to climb. Instead, you need to get down few steps to get to the shrine. This temple attracts lots of visitors due to its main attraction of water falling from Nandi’s mouth on top of Shiv Linga and then into the Kalyani.
Then we came back on Sampige Road to pay our visit to Sai Baba. While walking we noticed the Sampige road side entrance of Kaadu Malleshwaram temple.
Sai Baba Mandir
It was nostalgic since during my school days I would visit this temple on Thursday’s. This temple is dedicated to Sai Baba who was an Indian Spiritual Guru (Master).
As we walked ahead on this road, we saw Sri Palimaru Math around 50 meters from Sai Baba Mandir along Sampige Road. Dad insisted to go inside and check since we saw many senior citizens entering this matha.
Sri Palimaru Matha
We saw two deities here. Facing the entrance, you will find Lord Venkateshwara and when you take a parikrama you will find Lord Raghavendra swamy on the back. We also saw posters of teerth yatra packages here. So interested people can inquire here and send their parents on one of the Teerth Yatra’s here.
After we came out of the matha, we crossed Sampige road and were welcomed by the colourful flower market.
From here we entered the 11th crossroad. There is a small bylane which connects 11th cross and Sampige Road via flower market.
Once you enter this lane, you will notice colourful murals on the walls of seva sadan which are very attractive. I showed my dad some of the murals which I had seen during my mural walk organized by BengaluruPrayana(Blog).
Right opposite to this wall, you will find Sri Shaneshwara temple.
Sri Shaneshwara temple
This is the only temple dedicated to Lord Shani in this area.
Then we walked straight up on 11th Cross towards Sri Venugopala Swamy temple.
Sri Venugopala Swamy temple.
This is a 115-year-old temple dedicated to Lord Krishna. This is located right opposite to Sri Vidya Mandir High School (Where I studied) on 11th cross.
There is one temple behind Sri Vidya Mandir School which my dad wanted to take me. But unfortunately, it was closed.
Next, we walked straight towards the 9th cross, east park road. Here there are 3 temples in the same line starting with Sri Ram Mandir, Sri Mahaganapthi temple and Sri Raghavendra Swamy temple.
Sri Ram Mandir
This temple was open but door hosting the main deity was closed. There was no priest either.
Sri Mahaganapthi temple
This temple is located right opposite to Malleswaram post office and next to Malleswaram vegetable market. Lord Ganesha is the main deity here. Shiva Linga resides on the left and Goddess Banashankari resides on the right side of Lord Ganesha. There are few more deities inside the temple premises.
We next visited Sri Raghavendra Swamy temple. Temple closing time was 12:30 PM but it was closed before time. So we then walked straight towards 8th cross road to cover the last temple of our temple trail today - Sri Kannika Parameshwari Temple.
Most famous Hotel Janatha also is located on this 8th cross road.
Sri Kannika Parameshwari Temple
This temple is located on the busiest 8th cross shopping street of Malleswaram but its grand gopuram just cannot be missed in the hustle and bustle of this street. This temple is dedicated to Goddess Sri Vasavi Matha and is crowded on every Friday since this day is considered auspicious just like other Goddesses.
Please note that most of these temples are open between 7 am to 12:30 pm in the morning. They open only at 4:30 pm in the evening. So please plan accordingly.
My last plan for the day was to get my dad savor the most famous Benne(butter) dose from CTR. But seeing the long queue outside, we decided to defer this plan to some other time.
Bye Bye Malleswaram
We decided to take BMTC bus back home since that is the best mode of transport to explore the city and you also get to observe those tiny miny things which you cant while driving. For example this signage on one of the metro pillar caught my attention. Did you know that Bangalore first introduced Rawa Idli to Mankind during World War 2? 😊
Hence I encourage everyone to take public transport to move around the city.
We reached home with the satisfaction of a blissful experience we got today through this half-day temple trail. I hope this blog will help spiritual enthusiasts plan a spiritual voyage along the oldest locality of Bangalore – Malleswaram.
Related Blogs
Malleswaram Street Art Trail - Walls that speak about the Locality
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