106 DIVYA DESAM-BADRACHALAM

When we are taking you the virtual tour of 106-Divya desams, we combine both punya Stalams, Abhimana Stalams and Divya Desams also to complete our life time mission.

Divya Desams are those which have mangalasasanams of Alwars and there are 9- Swayam Vaktha Kshetrams and around 29 Abhimana Sthalams.

 Bhadrachalam is a small town in south India on the banks of river Godavari .

It is famous for "Sri  Seetaramachandra Swamy temple"  which is the unique temple in India dedicated to lord Rama. Presently it is the biggest Temple  of Sri Rama after Ayodhya. It is the temple built in 17th century

Shri Ram temple perches on a small hillock, encircled by the holy river Godavari flowing towards southern direction. Bhadrachalam attracts hundreds and  thousands of devotees from all over  India.

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The name Bhadrachalam derived from Bhadragiri (Mountain of Bhadra - child of Meru and Menaka). Bhadrachalam is most picturesquely situated in an area, which once formed part of the Dandakaranya forest, visited by Sri Rama,Sita and Lakshmana during their exile (vanavasam). The jungle in the vicinity of the temple was the actual site of Rama's retreat and it was at the parnasala (32 km from here) that he built a hut for himself and Sita and
from where Sita was abducted by Ravana.The history of this shrine stands for the significance of Ramayana Era, and vicinity of the temple had its incongruous add mixture of another story which depicts the exigency of " Sri Mahavishnu " to manifest himself as Rama long after Ramavatara was to fulfill his promise to his Bhakta Bhadra (a mountain king), a sage who had been continuing the frightened penance to get grace of Lord Rama.

The temple at Bhadrachalam has the Archa Murthys of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana and are considered to be Svayambhu Murthys (self-manifested ones).Srirama appeared in a
dream to a woman called Pokala Dammakka and informed here about the existence of vigrahas on Bhadragiri hills. To her surprise she found the "Vigrahas" and put up a modest structure. Dhammakka ,cleared jungle  and offered puja to the deities. This was the origin of the present  temple.

The Temple was constructed in the 17th Century by the local Tahsildar, Kancharla Gopanna, popularly known as Bhakta Ramadas, a fervent devotee of Lord Sree Rama.  People called Gopanna by the name familiar to us as Bhadrachala Ramadas, because of his devotion to the Vaikunta Rama enshrined at Bhadrachalam.

The temple is kept open from 5:30 in the morning and stays so till 12:00 in the noon.The temple usually remains closed during the noon hours, and reopens in the evening at 4:00 p.m. The temple will be closed in the night after the last pujas are performed by 8:00. PM.

Bhadrachalam is situated on the banks of Godavari River,  161 kilometers from Rajahmundry and 201-km from Vijayawada . 325-km from Hyderabad. It is considered to be one of the greatest holy shrines in South India as Lord Rama lived here for some time.

 

We remind our readers and Devotees that the details of the temples are from various web site owners for the benefit of all devotees and our tour to all these places. We express our sincere thanks to the web site owners for sharing their experience with our virtual pilgrims and at the end of our tour we will acknowledge individual web sites for their contribution .

The Contributor here is-blogs4me.com

 

Edited By . R.Jagannathan.