Sep 01
The advantage of being in a place where there are distinctly different seasons is that you can keep going to the same place at different times and see totally different sights. This is the situation in and around Pune. During the monsoons, the whole area gets a facelift and everything looks green. So, on my second trip to the Bhuleshwar Shiva temple, the whole area around the hillock was green and presented a beautiful sight.
To know about the route to Bhuleshwar temple from Pune, check out the post from my first trip.
This time, i went a little earlier in the day around early evening. So, there was sufficient light inside the temple for me to photograph the statues. If you look at most of the statues inside the temple, they would have mutilated heads or legs. It seems that these statues were broken by the Mughal invaders centuries back when there were on an expansion spree.
Akshara was sleeping during the drive up to the temple. But she woke up on hearing some drums being played outside the temple. Even though she was half awake, she was very cooperative with our various photo requests 
My new camera, Sony DSC TX5, has a sweeping panorma feature which is pretty cool. Click on the photo below to see a much bigger version.
written by Rajaram S
Jul 01
“Ban” – Forest and Ishwar – God i.e. God within a forest. This is the origin of the name of the Baneshwar temple. The name looked inviting and looking it up on Google Earth, i saw that the temple was in the midst of a dense green patch. Not the size of a forest, but quite an expansive green patch. So, off we went on a Sunday afternoon to Baneshwar Temple, around 45 kms away from Pune.
How to go to Baneshwar Temple from Pune(Magarpatta): Go on Solapur road (towards Big Bazaar). Keep going towards Swargate. At the Swargate junction, turn left , towards Katraj. Keep going straight. This will take you past the Pune zoo towards Katraj Ghat. Once you get down from the ghat, you will meet NH4 coming from Mumbai. Join the highway. You will come across the first toll gate. Approximately 11 kms after the toll gate, you will come to a junction. On the right side of the road (strangely), you will see a green board with markings in Hindi for many places, the first three of which are for Shree Baneshwar – 3 kms, Rajgad – 20 kms and Torna Fort – 30 kms. You have to go inside this road to reach the temple.
On this road, you have to cross the Nasrapur marketplace which can be a mess during the evening (as we found out). it was almost like the Hadapsar market and it took at least 15 minutes to drive through this crowd. After the market, you will see an arch on the right and this road is the entrance to the temple complex. The two photos below will give you an idea of the surroundings of the temple (with the river and waterfall nearby). The second photo will give you an idea on where to turn on Nh4. Searching for Baneshwar will on Google maps will give you the wrong “baneshwar” which is located much further down on te NH4.
The temple has nothing much to write about. It is a small temple with a shiv ling inside. You can buy flowers outside to offer to the god. The dome of the temple is colourful and is a pretty sight in the evening light.
The gardens around the temple seem to be the main attraction rather than the temple itself. There are plenty of walkways created through this jungle with ample resting points and open areas for a picnic. Of course, there were lot of people practising the Maharastrian State Hobby of spitting (apart from the other hobby of trekking) in spite of the fact that there were inside a temple compound. The dense greenert is an excellent place to spend the evening with the family.
One of the trails will lead you to the river where there is a waterfall. This path is muddy and can be quite “yucky” to negotiate after the rains. This is a walk of around half a km. The waterfall was not quite spectacular as was writen in many blogs. Maybe, the monsoon is yet to arrive completely. The area around the waterfall was like a mini-Nighoj (because of less water) and people were climbing into the canyon which made for some good adventure.
written by Rajaram S
Jun 01
Every hill/mountain/hillock in Maharashtra must be having something on the top. Be it a fort or a temple. The shiva temple in Bhuleshwar is on top of a small hill in the middle of nowhere. There is also this TV tower right next to the temple (like the one at Sinhagad) spoiling the atmosphere.
The temple was once within a fort, the remnants of which are visible in the vicinity of the temple. This temple gets huge crowds during Mahashivratri. The priest told us that there is a decent crowd on almost all days in the mornings. An unique thing about the shiv-ling in this temple is that the top portion of the shivling opens up and you can put offerings (usually pedas) inside it. If you are really devout, these offerings are gobbled up, not by a rat, but God himself. The priest told us that such miracles do happen even now, albeit for the rare devotee.
You don’t need to go to Bhuleshwar temple as a devotee. You can go there as a casual tourist to relax in the absolute calm surrounding the hill. You can take photographs anywhere in the temple and for the pious, the priest also does archanas. The priest also doubles as the guide and if he is not busy, he has lot of interesting stories to tell. This would make a good trip for the evening. We started from Pune at around 6 pm, we reached there close to 7, just in time for the sunset. The wind was blowing like crazy and Akshara enjoyed it.
How to go to Bhuleshwar temple from Pune(Magarpatta): Go to the Pune-Solapur highway. Turn towards Hadapsar and proceed in that direction i.e. away from Swargate. You have to travel around 35 kms on this road. You will cross a toll booth where you pay a strange fee of 22.50 Rupees. After the second toll (close to village Uruli), you have to take a right. This right turn is 3 kms after the second tool and 2 kms before the village Yavat. There is a sign on the left side of the road pointing to the right lane (marked as Bhuleshwar). You will also see another sign on the right (next to the lane) which has directions to many other places like Sasvad, Narayanpur etc. You have to go on this road for a further 8-9 kms before you reach a ghat section. This ghat is pretty bad, it is like driving through an open quarry! The problem with this ghat is that the whole surface is of loose rocks and gravel and can be quite tricky if vehiles come in the opposite direction. Update: The entire ghat section has been relaid and it is a good tar road to drive on. After you reach the plateau on top, Bhuleshwar temple woul dbe visible to the right. You have to take a right and then climb upto the temple’s parking. The last 100-150 metres was incredibly steep with me having to stay in the first gear the entire stretch. If you don’t want to try this, park it before this steep stretch and climb up on the stairs. I couldn’t find this village road on google maps nor could i do a visual identification of the temple on google earth, but the map provided below should give you an idea of the location where you have to take a right from the Pune-Solapur highway.
View Larger Map
There were many disfigured statues in the temple. The priest told me that this was done by Aurangazeb’s men in an attempt to destroy and mutilate Hindu art.
Another interesting thing in this temple was the statue of Ganesha. It seems that this is the only temple in the world where Ganesha has a female form.
A very interesting place to visit and just relax.
written by Rajaram S
