The cultural visit for FSL India’s Long Term Volunteers was held on 11^th October 2019 with Miriam, who came in September and worked on the Sea Turtle Conservation project at our Centre for Experiential Living, Kundapur. One of the programmes at FSL India is a cultural visit, where we take our regular volunteers to any cultural and historical places which are located in or around Kundapur.

So, in the morning around 8.40 am, we met at the last bus stop at Kundapur, and I explained the whole day’s plan to her. Then, we took the bus from Kundapur to Kamalashile. It took us 1 ½ hours by bus to reach Kamalashile temple. First, we went to the temple river and washed our faces. Then, we saw a cobra goddess and said a special fire prayer, where a sari was burnt at the end of it.

We continued our walk and came along the shrines of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Then, we went to the temple and took “Darshana” of goddess Durga and participated in the Mahapooja program at 12:30, where we met the temple’s main Trustees (Dharmadarshi). They interacted with Miriam and explained about their temple. Together with many others, we ate our lunch on banana leaves. They served food on big banana leaves, with a large variety of items, including a sweet.

The famous Kamalashile Sri Brahmi Durgaparameshwari (Durga) temple is in the middle of a small forest, on top of a small hill. When we entered the temple, they were doing “Aarthi”, so we took “Darshana”. According to Skanda Purana (Hindu religious text) of Sahyadri Khanda, a beautiful lady by name Pingala was a court dancer who performed in front of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi on Kailash Mountain.

After the temple visit, we visited Suparsha Cave, which is 2 kms away. In Krutha Yuga, when King Suparshwa was searching for a suitable place to do penance and get moksha, he came across this cave and found it suitable. This was the reason to name this cave after King Suparsha.

King Suparsha prayed to Lord Shiva to bless him to do penance without any hurdles. Lord Shiva appointed one of his ganas (followers), Bhairava to permanently stay at the entrance of the cave, to make sure that the king’s penance is not disturbed. It is also said that a lot of rishis (sages) and maharajas (mighty kings) have come to this cave to do penance and one among them is Sri Sridhara Swamiji of Varadapura. This is about 2 kms from the temple on Halli Holle road.

At the end, we watched the priests performing a ceremony.  After that, we jumped into an auto and went to a holy cave near the temple. There, we entered the cave with bare feet and a priest showed us around. The ceiling of the cave was covered in bats and we saw different holy spots. The cave leads far into the rock. When we reached the end of it, we had to wade through the water. Then, the priest turned off the flashlight and everything was covered in darkness. Finally, it was a nice day trip along with our volunteer and back again to CEL.

Final Feedback: The cultural visit was very good. I really liked the trip even though we had to wait very long for the bus. It was interesting to see a temple from the inside and to participate in the rituals. The cave visit really was something special. Thank you!!