Saturday, January 15, 2011

Bugga-A super small village

Ducked in the interior parts of Andhra  Pradesh (Kharimnagar dist) is a super small village called Bugga. I think we cant even call that a village because all it has is a small temple and literally 5 huts. The literal translation of the word Bugga is bubble.There is another small town with the same name in Khammam dist but I am not talking about the same Bugga.
 Bugga is locally famous for a very old Lord Shiva's temple. When we (husband and I) went to visit my parents last summer, they took us to the Bugga for a darshan and small picnic there. Since it was summer, most of the leaves are dry. Apparently it can get quite scary in rainy and winter seasons.
As we approached Bugga, the first thought which came to me was "wow, there are monkeys".
There was another family who were just leaving when we arrived. So we pretty much had the entire place for ourselves. The pujari/gurukkul/priest was someone in mid-40's. Apparently the temple was being maintained by his family since many generations. When I asked him how old the actual Shiva-lingam in the temple was, he only said its too old. He didn't have any specific year. Now, I would really appreciate if anyone knows of how old the shiva lingam is.
Also, its supposed to be Swayambhoo, which means, the lingam formed by itself and is not man made.
One of the intriguing things about this temple is the below water tank. All you see here is a small streak of water which is coming from the ground below in all seasons. There is no river/lake/sea nearby. It just comes from the ground and how its coming is a big mystery. Well, its a mystery only to me but even to a few specialist who have done elaborate research but found nothing!
This streak of water flows down to the little pond. Since its a very small streak, its just enough for the pujari to clean the temple, clean the Shiva lingam and also to keep water above the lingam so that it trickles down in drops.
Another strange thing is that the water has a sweet fragrance, no kidding!

Apparently a few years ago, some one funded the temple to be painted and new flooring to be done. If you ever get a chance to visit Kharimnagar dist in AP, I suggest you go there. It was an awesome experience.
My mom and my aunt had made Biryani, chicken, raita and some dessert for all of us. That reminds me, its the only temple I know of (with the exception of Kali) which actually allows its devotees to have non-veg, out side the premises of temple. We played cards, took pictures and made life time memories.

6 comments:

  1. Lovely Pictures..and I love this type of places very much, its my dream to live in one small place like this.

    I like to go and see old temples more than those ostentatiously built newer ones, old ones give me a different feeling.

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  2. such a serene place...the pictures speak.
    Temple villages, towns, cities, attract people ...I love to visit such places...history speaks a lot...

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  3. Lovely pics.. Sounds like you had loads of fun!. the water smelling sweet is intriguing .. Maybe gets scented by some roots ? and the source ? Somethings just cant be explained rationally,i guess.

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  4. Good pictures.Interesting description.There are so many stories related to many of our worshiping places.And we don't have to find explanations for everything.We simply can't.

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