I had decided to first explore the summit of Siddarabetta and only later explore the cave temple and all other caves at a slightly lower level. While we were descending from the summit to the cave temple, Vinod informed me that a Nepali Sadhu had arrived last Monday (we were trekking the following Sunday) and was living in the cave and performing intense Sadhana (extremely rigorous spiritual practices) and had not eaten anything since the past five days. Since he did not know the local language he could not interact with the locals. I was curious to meet this person and interview him if possible. We gradually descended to the level of the cave temple, removed our footwear and devoutly entered the cave.
We were shown the Shiva Linga and is called Siddeshwara. It is a tiny black linga with a hooded serpent of metal. It was adorned with flower garlands and other assorted flowers like hibiscus. After a brief prayer we decided to venture deeper into the cave.
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| Rugged Path to Rudra Muneeshwar Gaduge |
As we negotiated low hanging rocks on top and rugged boulders strewn on the floor, we arrived at a bright chamber. We saw two tiny rooms both of which had doors that were closed. Vinod informed me that the Nepali Sadhu was in one of the rooms. I made a somewhat hesitant effort to rouse the sadhu to open the door. I spoke out loud in Hindi that I had been to Nepal and to Katmandu and asked if I could speak to him. I was feeling extremely hesitant as I was afraid I might be interrupting his spiritual practises. Vinod later tapped on the door and presently he opened a tiny window with an iron mesh screen and briefly acknowledged us. Not wishing to disturb him further we bade farewell and proceeded deeper into the cave. We had to crawl through about twelve feet of extremely low hanging rock with barely three feet clearance and then emerged to a somewhat spacious chamber that was quite dark. We lit our electric torches and were surprised to find a few monkeys even here.
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| Low roofed caves to be negotiated |
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| Jeevantha Samadhi (Live grave) of Venkatappa Avadhutha |
Vinod pointed to a rocky platform and said that this was what was called in Kannada as the RudraMuneeshwara Gaduge (Rudramuneeshwara's Seat) where the Sadhu was supposed to have lived during the reign of Kurangaraya. Just four or five feet opposite this platform was a mound with a slit to one side and which Vinod said was the Jivanth Samadhi (live grave?!) of Venkatappa Avadhootha. My guru later told me that this Venkatappa is quite different from the Guru of Shirdi Sai Baba. Vinod further explained that the slit was there in the mound to facilitate the prana of Venkata Avadhutha who, they all believe, is still alive in the grave.
All the fotos that I have put in the blog are from a still camera with a flash. A video camera recording would have been quite spectacular. I provide a link to a video recording further below.
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| Meditating on Rudramuneeshwara Gaduge (Seat) |
I sat on the Rudra Muneeshwara Gaduge and meditated for a few minutes. Later we explored a small underground source of refreshingly cold sweet water just beside the Gaduge. This spring is called Suvarnagundi as the hill is also known as Suvarnagiri. Vinod asked me if I was game to have a bath in that water. When I eagerly assented (I had brought a spare underwear and towel from Bangalore based on my readings of other blogs) he made me sit on a rock about five feet away, fetched a vessel and poured out five large measures of water on my head.
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| The spring named Suvarna Gundi |
After drying myself with a towel and dressing up, we decided to retrace our path to the exit. On our way back we were happy to find that the Nepali Sadhu had flung the door of his room wide open. He invited us to be seated and spread a mattress. On enquiry we found that his name was Jyoteshwar Das and that he was from a location near Pashpathi Nath temple in Katmandu, though he presently lived in some other remote part of Nepal. We were surprised to hear he was only 27 years old and had had also lived in Texas and New York where he had worked in the accounting line. His guru's name was Balak Das and was supposed to have been from South India. His guru had advised him to move to the south of India and by some convolute route and with the help of some person he met, he found himself in the caves of Siddarabetta.
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| Jyoteshwar Das - the Nepali Sadhak in the cave at Siddarabetta |
He said he had acquired some power over his bodily needs through intense sadhana. He said that though all these local villagers were saying that he had not eaten for five days, he had a meager stock of beaten rice (poha in Hindi) with which he was feeding himself somewhat. He later informed us that he was getting intuitive messages that his friend was in some need and that he had to leave for Tumkur immediately. Presently Karthik, Jyoteshwar Das and I descended to the foot of the hill after paying our guide Vinod a small sum of 300 rupees for his guidance.
We reached the base at 3:50 p.m and left for Bangalore at 4:10 p.m. The speedometer reading was 83115 at Siddarabetta. This time we headed towards Tumbadi and Koratagere and thence to Dobbspet and Bangalore. We had a break of about 50 minutes at Uradigere where Karthik wanted to buy fresh vegetables. It is only after we entered the Bangalore Division from the Tumkur Division on
SH3 that we found the quality of the road to be good. The other drawback on this route is that there are quite a lot of dangerous curves and the route is rather sinuous. Further, as is the tendency of many rural folk especially in Karnataka there are many unmarked badly constructed speedbreakers that can be quite dangerous to a motorbike rider. The route we had taken in the morning had none of these flaws and we had a safe ride. On our return journey we were at Yeshwantpur, Bangalore at 7:10 p.m. and reached Rajajinagar (Karthik's house) at 7:30 p.m. The kilometer reading at home was 83218 meaning that it had taken us 103 km on a return journey.
For an interesting short video on exploring the caves at Siddarabetta click on the Youtube link given below: (be sure to connect your speakers !)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqla6BlT-xw&feature=colike
Thus ended an exhilarating Sunday in the month of March 2012 !
Concluded
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