A trip to Tuljapur

Tuljpur is a hill city located near Sholapur which is home to the Goddess Bhavani. It is 45 km away from Solapur. One can reach Solapur easily by bus or train. From Solapur there are plenty of buses to Tuljapur and also private passenger vehicle whom you can trust upon. Tulja Bhavani temple is placed on the slopes of the Sahayadri range. The temple has much attraction to pilgrims of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as this Goddess is the deity of many people. It gained much fame as Tulja Bhavani is the family deity of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

History: The history records of Bhavani temple exists from 12^th century. During Maratha regime the temple rose to prominence. It is said that Shivaji used to take blessing of this Deity of Bhavani for success in his military campaigns. In this legendary it is also mentioned that mother Tulja Bhavani presented Shivaji with the Bhavani Sword that made him invincible king of the era. It is popularly known as Bhavani Talwar, presently it is in London museum.

The Temple: The temple has a great entrance called Raje Shahaji Mahadwar. You can take your belongings into this entrance and have to keep bangs, camera and even mobiles in the cloak room. Walk downstairs at the right of the entrance where you can find Gomukh Tirth, ground water which is continuously flowing from the hillside. From there we should walk to the security check which might make you irritated. The temple has tight security, where you will find the security personal and the CC camera every corner of the temple. There will be two queues each for Mukha Darshan and Dharma Darshan. If you stand in Dharma Darshan you will end up in watching the idol of Goddess Bhavani in closed range of about 12 feet. But in Mukha Darshan you can walk in lesser crowd to see the Goddess idol from double the distance of Dharma Darshan. But in latter you will be having much time to sit there and enjoy watching the poojas. Just behind the main temple there is a round black stone which is believed to be fortune telling. You can touch it using both hands and it will more either left, right of stand stable and the fortunes are negative, positive and cant be known as of now respectively.

When to visit: On special occasions like Navratras, Lalita Panchami, Makara Sankranti and Rathasaptami, thousands of devotees flock the temple and hence it will be crowded. During April and May the mercury level will be very high, better to avoid summer months to visit the temple. I went on the day of Makara Sankranti and was much crowded but the temperature was at 33 C in afternoon.

The environment: The temple is clean and well maintained. Outside the temple does not have much difference from any other pilgrimage places, though comparatively good. The people inside and outside the temple are cooperative. They won’t put three ‘namas’ like Pandarapur to exploit money, the priests won’t do some useless pooja for you to ask you money.

This is one of the very few temples which I thought of visiting again.