My parents had been wanting to visit this place, after they came across an article in one of the Religious Magazines. So we decided to go to this place on a Sunday morning (Sep 17, 2006). We had plans to leave early in the morning and head to this place, but unfortunately we got delayed start and had to head towards the Shell petrol bunk on Hosur road. So we had to take a first deviation from our path to fill up petrol.
We then took the Ring road, to go towards Old Madras Road, upon reaching the intersection, we had to take a left to join the Highway, but instead by wrong instinct, we took the right turn and found ourself in front of ITPL, whitefield. So the second deviation it was from the regular route.
Further down, I realised we had come the wrong way, instead of hitting the Old Madras Road and then after asking a couple of people for directions, we found ourselves at the white field railway station Gate, waiting for a very long time for one engine to be moved. Again, after further directions, we crossed the Sai baba ashram in Whitefield, through pot-hole filled roads and found the road toward NH.
Through our detours we had considerably lost half-of the morning. Finally we took the NH and proceeded towards Kolar. 15kms before Kolar, we began to ask directions for Kotilingeshwara and promptly realised that we might have to go beyond Kolar(20 - 25kms) to reach this place. As fate would have it, we all badly wanted to have a cup of Tea at a decent place and I ended up suggesting to have a cup of tea at Woodys in Kolar, since we will have to cross Kolar.
Soon we reached Kolar, and we proceeded to go into the town, to go to Woodys. This action turned out again to be a bad choice, as Woodys was outside Kolar and we would have been better off, take the bypass towards Chennai, instead of getting into Kolar and hence we lost another 30mins by going through slow moving traffic and asking directions.
By around 12pm we reached Woodys and felt that we would be better off taking our lunch as our supposed guides had told us that there was not a good place to have decent lunch at Kotilingeshwara. Again, we started to ask the Woody's people for directions, who directed us to take a left turn on the Bypass towards Bangalore and to ask for directions after 10kms. This turned out to be a splendid mistake, as the route began to turn into a village road, going further down, we realised that we were the only car on the entire road and there was no other transportation.
A couple of villagers were found here and there looking at us with amazement as to why would a car be found on this stretch. Luckily we found another board, which pointed us towards KGF, but the road was something left over of a road. Soon, there was a person on a moped driving behind us, that gave us a little bit of hope, that we were not lost in a forest and there is some civilization around us.
On this route, we found lots of vegetable and tomato farms, but we could not find people in the farms and there were couple of kgs of tomatoes on the road, crushed and rotten, most probably due to the fact that tomato prices had fallen very low, that cost of transporting them to the market was higher than the price realisation for the farmers.
Somehow, we got hold of this guy on the moped coming behind us, and he in turn agreed to show us the direction to Kotilingeshwara. With him in the front and us following him behind in our car, it was a funny sight, when our guide went off-road and took us through the walking paths and into nearby village, with a couple of turns here and there and through incomplete culverts, we finally reach Kotilingeshwara at around 2pm.
Unlike other places, in Kotilingeshwara you have to pay an entrance fees of 10Rs per person.
Kotilingeshwara currently houses some 60 lakhs(6 million) of lingams and is yet to reach the 10 Million figure, this place has been in existence for more than 10 years and also one of the biggest Lingam & Nandi, the only let down is both of these are made from concrete and iron,
All the lingams that have been contributed here have been made out cement and are mass-produced and hence follows little guidelines laid out for the structural integrity for a lingam. This place has an amazing number of lingams contributed by all the famous and infamous people by contributing a few thousands of rupees.
Temple and the surroundings are well-controlled by the swamiji(dont know his name) & his family and you can find lingams all around walls, floors, door steps in all sizes, ranging from the smallest to quite large ones ofcourse all in cement. If you would like to contribute a lingam, all it takes is a couple of thousands of rupees and a few minutes of time for the lingam to be pasted to the base(avudaiyar) and to have a pooja performed.
Our return journey was without wrong turns, we reached Bangalore back in time to pick up my wife from the airport along with a coffee break in Kamat's before Kolar, drenched in the rain.
Claim to Fame: You can find this place in some of the Telugu movie Song & Dance sequences, particularly the ones with a religious theme.
Total No. of Lingams: 60 Lakhs (6 million) as on the date of journey.
Closest City: Bangalore
Driving Directions:
1. Take Old Madras Route from Bangalore to Kolar
2. Take the Kolar By-pass and proceed to Bangarapet
3. 15kms from Bangarapet station towards KGF.
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