Childhood Memories in Hasanamba Temple

History of my hometown Hassan is as beautiful as the town itself, and the story is incomplete without talking about Hasanamba temple. It is believed that seven Maatrukes (Brahmi, Maheshwari, Kaumari, Vyshnavi, Varahi, Indrani and Chamundi) during their vacation time visited Hassan and they were taken aback by the beauty of it and decided to make it their home forever.

The city is believed to be named after Goddess Hasanambe and the temple is open only for 9-10 days in a year during Deepavali festival. The rest of the time the Goddess is left with a lit lamp, flowers, water and two bags of rice as offering until the next year. The nandaa deepa, (a ghee-lit lamp) burns all round the year for the entire duration when the temple doors are shut, with the ghee never depleting. And the anna naivedya (the rice offering) offered to the devi at the time of closing the temple is warm and unspoiled when the doors are opened again, a year later.

Mythical Story of a devotee
Hasanamba turned a mother in law, who tortured Devi’s devotee the (daughter in law), in to a stone. It is believed it the stone moves by a centimetre every year and when it reaches the lotus feet of hasanamba the period of kaliyuga will end.
My grand parents have seen the stone moved from more than a kilometre distance which is now inside the temple right in-front of the goddess. People have somehow stopped its movement by nailing the stone deep down the earth.

Now let me share my moments associated with this temple, i grew up there right in-front of the temple was my school where i studied from class 1 to 4, and my house was at 200mtrs distance. Our school prayers daily morning was done in the circle where the temple is, After school hours or even during the holidays we played inside the temple premise, the huge track in-front of the Devi temple was our cricket ground we enjoyed playing there as it was a stone track and we mastered our-self aiming the ball at the gaps of the stone tiles so that it deflects the batsmen. When the ball was hit high upon the Siddeshwara temple roof, there was only one such pillar with perfect grip to climb upon the temple roof. Only few ever climbed and i am one amongst.
As the temple premise is huge we have even played Hide n Seek, we have had tough time seeking.

I couldn't stop myself from penning it down as these memories were so nostalgic. I can still visualize myself inside peaceful temple premise being a kid.

Media has made our temple a famous one, but i really dont like it being made so commercialised, in recent years a lot of people from different locations visit the temple and get blessedl,
they stand in Tirupati level Queue and wait for a long time for darshana, i only request them to keep the place clean. May god bless you. #SwatchBharath #SwatchHassan