Mantralayam
We took a road trip to Mantralayam which is around 280 Kms from Hyderabad. Mantralayam is on the banks of river Tungabhadra and got its importance for a being a holy shrine and moola mutt(Main Mutt) for Sri Raghavendra Swamy. He was a proponent of Advaita Vedanta and tradition of Sri Madhwacharya. This is where His Holiness Sri Raghavendra Swamy attained his salvation and entered into Brindavana alive and imparted his final discourse before being sealed in it. Since then the Guru Parampara has been followed and holy saints have been presiding this Matha and keeping the tradition alive. His Holiness radiance and grace bestows upon us as Kamadhenu and will leads to spiritual realization.
Alampur – Jogulamba Temple
On the outskirts of Kurnool district is Alampur which is one of the 18 Shakti Peetha of Goddess Durga. The Goddess here is called as Jogulamba and according to purana and various legends the death of Goddess Sati brought about grievance to Lord Siva and in order to pacify him Lord Vishnu created an illusion of Sati and cut her into 18 parts and they fell on different parts across India. Each organ had fallen on each Shakti Peetha and in Alampur it was her upper teeth. The temple is mostly in ruins and ASI(Archaeological Society of India) has preserved some of the parts of it. Built around thousand years ago this was badly defaced and demolished by Mughal in 1350 AD. Later the temple was rebuilt after 600 years. One can see some of the oldest Siva Temples in this complex.
