Travel - Mantralyam, Panchamukhi and Bitchalaya

Swami Ragavendrar – heard about swamiji so many times, but never felt like seeing him or visiting that place. Suddenly, my life got changed and prayed to every god on earth for my loved one to get well and Swamiji’s name strike in my mind. I prayed to Swamiji and thought of visiting Mantralaya.

I am here in Bangalore for over 4.5 years but never even thought about visiting Mantralya. Suddenly we decided about going to Mantralaya on May 1st 2008 and we went and searched for tickets. Luckily we got tickets in KSRTC. Though trains are available to Mantralaya we didn’t got tickets in that short span. KSRTC has very good bus services available to Mantralaya. We booked a sleeper coach and it was @10pm from Majestic.

May 1st was a Thursday and that too Eka Dasi and moreover 4 days holidays was also there. We inquired in the Matt which is in Jayanagar 3rd block regarding accommodation. We got to know that they have stopped advanced booking long time back. We didn’t have any clue whether we will get accommodation. But something said us that we will sure get accommodation.

Mantralayam is in Andhra Pradesh and it was said that it will take around 10hours to reach. But to our surprise, we reached next day morning 5:30am hardly 7:30hours travel. We went to 2/3 hotels and asked for rooms to just take bath and get ready. Surprise!! So many rooms were available. But they charged atrociously. Either by seeing us or special day. Whatever, we inquired in 2/3 hotels, bargained and finally got a room in one hotel and paid 75bucks per person for taking bath and getting ready.

Good we reached early. By 7am we were ready and we were in temple premises. Not much rush, but then so many folks were already there taking darshan. We went and had darshan. Till 8am there were no special entrance so we entered through VIP entrance and had darshan second time. No pooja was performed that day cos of Eka Dasi and no prasadham was distributed. We got pooja items, got Mruthika[ holy sand from Swamiji’s tomb] and got idols inside the temple premises itself.
After breakfast, we all are set to visit Panchamukhi and Bitchalaya. Share Autos are available but will take time to start until it gets filled up and you will be squeezed completely. So we hired a Shared Auto exclusively for ourselves. For panchamukhi and Bichalaya we gave 300 bucks. Could be costlier. But no other option that day, since so much rush and no one was ready to come anything lesser.
We started to Panchamukhi in bumpy roads properly breaking our back. I thought anytime I will fall from the auto. Mantralaya by itself is a very small village and so as other places. May month, sun was @ his peak and we were in Andhra  We got roasted properly. It was nearly a 1 hour journedy and we reached Panchamukhi. It’s a hanuman Temple.
Swamiji did thapas[penance] for 12years and Lord Hanuman pleased w/ Swamiji appeared before him. Lord Vishnu also appeared before swamiji along w/ Lakshmi devi and gave darshan. Then Swamiji came to Mantralaya and attained jeeva Samadhi. You can see a ‘Padaraksha’ Shrine and some natural rock formations like ‘bed/pillow’ and ‘aerial vehicle’. There is one temple for a goddess named ‘yarkalamma’ which is a naturally formed rock idol statue. One can also see the foot wear and gadham of Lord Hanuman in the temple premises.

Then we visited Bitchalaya. This is the place where swamiji used to do thapas and it is believed that every night, Swamiji comes here from Mantralaya in the form of ‘jyothi’ – light. One can see a ‘tulsi Madam’ carved out of a single stone. Bitchalaya lie in the banks of River Tungabadra and it’s a very calm and serene place.
We spent nearly 3.5 hours in visiting these places and came back and settled in Mantralaya. There are not many places to see in and around Mantralaya. So if one reaches early and has their return ticket booked around 9pm or so, they can book room in the morning, visit Panchamukhi and Bitchalaya come back and take rest. Else you have to sit in the temple premises only as we did. The temple closes by 2:30pm and re-opens by 4pm again. We had one more darshan of swamiji in the evening and started back by 7pm KSRTC bus. The Rajahamsa bus we travelled reached Bangalore by 3:30am itself.

Since the route is through Adoni, we reached early else could have been extended to 1-2hrs extra. The temple is just 100mts away from the place where the KSRTC bus stops and it’s just a small village. No need to pay to auto walas to reach temple from bus stand. And we heard that all these places are Naxalite areas and we came to know only after visiting. But no problem happened in our trip. Swamiji is there to help us  overall, a nice and must visit religious place.