Talakadu: the temple town under the sand

Sand is the whole story here. Talakadu was a flourishing capital of the Western Ganga dynasty; later the Cholas held it and renamed it Rajarajapura, then the Hoysalas under Vishnuvardhana took it back, and in the early 17th century it passed to the Wodeyars of Mysore. Over the centuries drifting dunes swallowed the town and more than thirty temples.

Local tradition blames a curse. In 1610, the story goes, Rani Alamelamma, wife of the local ruler Tirumala-Raja, drowned herself in the Kaveri after a conflict with Raja Wodeyar of Mysore, laying a three-fold curse: that Talakadu become sand, that Malangi become a whirlpool, and that the Mysore kings be left without heirs. Geologists point instead to the river shifting its course. Standing on the dunes, with sand to your ankles and temple towers rising out of it, both explanations feel strangely beside the point.

• Vaidyanatheshwara temple. The main excavated temple, from the Chola era, and the anchor of the Panchalinga circuit.
• The other Panchalinga shrines. Pathaleshwara, Maruleshwara, Arkeshwara and Mallikarjuneshwara (at Mudukuthore) complete the five Shiva temples worshipped together.
• Kirti Narayana temple. A Vishnu temple that has been successfully excavated from the sand.
• The dunes themselves. Walkways cross them between the shrines; finish on the riverbank of the Kaveri.

On a rare alignment (the new-moon Monday of the month of Karthika falling on the Vishakha star) all five Shiva shrines are worshipped together in the Panchalinga Darshana, and Talakadu fills with pilgrims. It is often described as a once-in-twelve-years festival, but the date depends on the almanac and recent ones came closer together: 2009, 2013 and a ten-day festival in December 2020, with the main darshan on 14 December. Check the next date closer to the time.