SIDDALINGESWARA TEMPLE

SIDDHALINGESHWARA TEMPLE

Siddhalingeshwara Yati, a famous Veerashaiva saint who lived during the 16th century. The place is 

30 km. away from Kunigal, Pilgrims who visit the place in hundreds daily are fed free, and there are rest houses for them. The Matha has a fine wooden chariot (ratha) with some interesting sculptures. The place has a Varadaraja temple and two Veerashaiva Mathas. The Matha’s building has some old paintings on walls. This is in Yedyur, Tumkur of Bangalore.

Yedyur (P. 600), in Kunigal taluk, about 12 miles south-west of the kasaba, on the Bangalore-Hassan 

road, is the headquarters of the Yedeyur hobli. The Siddhalingeshwara temple at this place, facing north, is a large structure constructed in the Dravidian style of architecture and has the goddige (Samadhi or tomb) of Tontada-Siddhalinga, a celebrated Veerashaiva spiritual teacher and author who lived in the 15 century. He was a swami of the Murugi-matha and had many disciples several of whom have written Kannada works bearing on the Veerashiva faith and philosophy, his own being Shatsthala Jnanasaramrita. There is a story that the bells of the temple were thrown into a well during a Muslim incursion and that were subsequently restored to the temple by a Muslim Amildar with inscriptions newly engraved on them.

This holy place attracts a large number of devotees from far and near all the year round. The temple has a

good car with six stone wheels, the car festival taking place on the seventh lunar day of the bright fortnight of Chaitra (March-April). Close to the temple is a Veerashaiva matha; another Veerashaiva matha at some distance is known as Chitra-matha, because its verandah was once adorned with paintings. In front of this is a fine well, built with well-dressed vertical slabs all round and adorned with a well-carved stone parapet. There is also a Varadaraja temple here which is in a dilapidated condition.