Trekking - Veerabhadra Temple - Hulukadi Betta, Doddaballapur

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Trekking in Hulukadi Hills:

There are very few places around Bangalore that connects to History. Among them is the less known Hulukadi Hill Fort. This hill has a fort, a Cave Temple and a small pond. This place is towards the north of bangalore, near Doddaballapur Village. Its a very quite, peaceful place, full of greenery.

History Of Veerabhadra Temple, Hulukadi Betta:

Although there are several mythological stories attached to this place, there is something mysterious about this place too. It is said that this hill is the place is God Nataraj, incarnation od Lord Shiva. According to Hindu mythology, Lord Veerabhadra(Nataraja) and Lord Narsimha fought to stay in this place. Later Lord Veerabhadra took this place and Lord Narsimha took another place that is now in Andhra Pradesh. Since than Lord Veerabhadra is prayed in this hills. According to the prist of this temple there are three temples of Lord Veerabhadra, Surrounding Bangalore in a Triangular Shape. One is near Anantpur, Andhra and the last one is lost somewhere. Every Year during the February Festival, a Giant snake comes to this temple and circles itself around the legs if the Lord Veerabhadra's Statue. The Chola Kings of those days found a natural Shiva Linga in this place along with a Nandi. They then formed two temples on the hill, one for Swami Veerabhadra and another for Shiva. They bulid fort walls and watch towers on several spots in the hill that can be seen even till today. These walls were built around 11th to 13th century by the Chola kings. Although the old temple walls are now painted and tiled, it still holds some historical sculptures and markings.


Trekking in Hulukadi Hills:

It was a typical lazy Sunday of Bangalore, we started our journey. In order to avoid traffic we started at 6 am. Hulukadi Hills is around 50 kms from Bangalore. Logically it should take 1 to 2 hours to reach this place, however we reached around 11:30. Shocking!!! Well, the journey to this destination is so beautiful, that you could hardly stop yourself from appreciating this place. We first stopped for breakfast in a Tiffin restaurant, hogged hot Vadas and idlis. We then stopped on the way....first in Vine farm, in a teak farm, corn farm and flower farm. As, always our photo freaks took every possible sight they think is different. From Pissing Buffalo to crazy bike stunts, we hardly left things for imagination.

There are several routes to reach this place. You can take Hesargatta road or tumkur route or can go through new airport road. We took the Hesargatta flora green route, which is full of botanical research farms and green fields. When we reached down the hill, we ate some food we got along. As this is a virgin spot without any commercialization, you could hardly find anything to eat or see. You can see wide green field on your left and hill on your right. If you go little 50 metres in the field, your mysterious journey will start. There is a well in this field. Its water is milky white in color. Though the soil around this well is black in color, the water in the well is milky, and so this is called as milky well.

It was a cloudy day and we started climbing at 12 noon. Some two years back, the temple society made some stone stair way, zigzag and adventurous. Some stairs are carved on stone and in some place you have to find your own way. Half way there is a small cave like formation, where Rishis used to meditate. Halfway there is small Nandi temple and a pond. Some stone houses are also built in this place to rest if you go at night. As, we believe, we are water borne animals, one moment we saw a pond and another moment we were inside it. It was only after we jumped inside; we got the nature of hill water, its freezing cold.

We used the stone house as our changing room and then moved towards the temple. The temple is in side a cave, now a small stone wall is build around it. The entrance of the temple is just 2 ft tall. There is very old statue of Lord Veerabbhadra, black in color, placed inside the temple. There was a young priest in his early teen, chanting prayers. He also took us to the other Shiva Linga temple, which is also inside a 2-3 ft tall cave.

Wish Nandi: Outside this Shiva temple, there's a stone nandi place on a stone plate. It is believed that if a person with good heart makes a wish and lift this Nandi to heart's height, his wish will come true. You can lift it one time or three times or in odd number of times. As none of us has any bad track record or police case, each one of us could lift it up at least one. We then went to the fort watch towers on top of the hill. It’s such a mesmerising sight, a panoramic view from the top that one could hardly think of returning back. 180 degrees around and you could see from farms, to plots to villages to highway. It was that reason the kings in those days chose this place for their fort. There are various medicinal plants, fruits and flowers all around the place. One could see animal, human demi God sculptures in the temple wall made up of sandstone.

We stopped on half way down, had some fruits, snacks and chocolates. While climbing down we took some medicinal plants for home garden. We took rest for some time and played cricket on the field. It was around 4 pm, we decided to return. We took some pics around, tired models and few last poses.

Well, that was the first Sunday of August, Friendship day and we all think that it was a nice way to celebrate this day, trekking with friends, huffing and puffing, enjoying all the way.

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