Parshwnath SushilDham Jain Temple at Attibelle, Bangalore

I recently went to Parshwnath Sushildham jain temple located at Attibele, on NH-7, some 8-10 km away from electronic city on NH-7 towards Hosur.

1 Day visit to Shravanbelagola

Recently visited famous Jain temple at Shravanbelagola, Karnataka from Bangalore. I always used to make unplanned visits, so this blog may help you in planning unplanned trip to shravanbelagola.

Shravanabelagola is located at 13 km to the south-east of Channarayapatna in the Channarayapatna taluk of Hassan district of Karnataka. It is at a distance of 157 km from Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka.

As we were only two persons to travel, so going by cab will not be a economical option, so we opted to go by bus.
We reached Majestic at about 8:00 AM. Enquired and got to know that the direct bus to shravanbelagola is at 7:00 AM and then at 11:00 AM. We further enquired and got to know that there are plenty of buses to channaryanapatna (bus frequency is almost 15 minutes), and from channarayanapatna, there is seamless connectivity to Shravanbelagola by some shuttle bus (Really appreciated KSRTC for this).

We had some breakfast and then boarded the bus at 8:45 AM. The bus fare was some 120/-.
We reached channarayanapatna at about 12:15 AM. From channarayanapatna, there are buses at 5 min interval to shravanbelagola. We took the bus and the fare was  just 11/-. The distance from C'patna to Shravanbelagola is about 13 kms, and the route is very scenic. there were loads of coconut tress on the backdrop of hills. One beautiful lake was also there in which some lotus were also there. By 12:45 PM, we reached shravanbelagola.

We decided to take lunch and then proceed for darshan of Lord Gommateshvara. As I had been to various Jain teerths, I was a bit disappointed to see the facilites on this teerth as compared to other teerths. The crowd was also less and so the facilities. First of all, language was a barrier, as it was not very easy to make them understand Hindi/ English.

When we get down at bus stand, and enroute to hills, we couldn't find any information centre. So we have no idea where we will be having lunch at dharmshala. We only saw one hotel, which was also not serving proper Jain food(no potato, no onions) We moved further and saw few homes, where they serve home made  Jain food. We decided  to have lunch at those home only. They served Dal, rice, roti, 2 veg, curd. Well, the food reminded me of mess food we used to get in hostel. Although, it was not that bad (may be we are hungry so tasted good) The food costed some 45 bucks.

We enquired with him and got to know that there is one Jain dharmshala, if we have moved further ahead. But he told the food taste there is as same as we ate at his home.

After having food, we were ready for darhsan. As there are two hills, Vindhyagiri and Chandragiri. The 57-feet tall monolithic statue of Gommateshvara is located on Vindyagiri Hill. It has about 1000 steps. Chandragiri has about 400 steps and there are about 14 ancient temples of Jain Tirthankars.

As it about 2 PM, and with our full stomach, it was getting bit difficult to climb on Vindhyagiri. We were taking rest at every 10-15 mins. This condition was with almost every devotee there because of daytime on a bright sunny day.

We finished everything by about 4:30 PM, and went to bus station where we found the shuttle bus and reached channarayanapatna. The last direct bus to bangalore is at 3 PM. After reaching C'Patna, we instantly got the bus for bangalore and were at majestic by 9:00 PM.

In and all, it was a nice 1 day visit to Shravanbelagola. If you only intend to visit shravanbelagola, going by KSRTC bus could be a good option as the frequency is very good.

 Jai Jinendra