As our days of living in Hyderabad are counting down we have been ticking off all the things on our bucket list. One of these was the famous 'Visa Temple' located about 30 minutes from the city, this temple attracts over 75,000 devotees weekly, all hoping to have their wishes/prayers come true. Those are some crazy numbers !! So, in order to make this visit not too insane, we visited early in the morning in the hope to avoid huge crowds. When we arrived at 8.15am there was already about 600 people there with many more buses and cars pulling up behind us.
The temple itself is not that interesting but it is one of the oldest temples in Telangana, having been built over 500 years ago and is devoted to the Lord Balaji, the reincarnation of Lord Vishnu. The temple has been dubbed the 'Visa Temple' as many devotees believe that after visiting the temple and making their wish that have received their visa for overseas travel - specifically a green card for the USA. Despite, or maybe because of, the tightening of visa issuances to the USA, the temple has had a consistent flow, if not an increase, of believers in the last year.
Another interesting fact about this temple is it is one of only a few temples throughout India that does NOT have a donation box. It is a lovely, simple little temple in a very tiny little village in the countryside outside of Hyderabad. It had a lovely feel about it and everyone was so committed and devoted to the gods that you really felt part of the joy.
The process on arriving is to buy your offerings (archana) - for us this was a coconut, some herbs and flower garland. You then must remove your shoes, and in this case it's a very dirty area outside the gate and a little wooden stand to store your shoes. I do not do well walking on dirty, rocky paths, but successfully negotiated the random dog and cow faeces, human spit, coconut shells and other garbage to make it to the concreted temple entrance. We started by following the signs to 'Coconut Breaking' area and commenced trying to smash our coconuts - no easy feat for Max! The coconut with its hard outer shell represents anger and negativity in our lives and the soft white inside represents the pure, innocent and positive attributes we have. Therefore, by breaking a coconut at the temple, you are saying to the gods that you will break free from the negativity and fill your life with positivity. While visiting on NYE, I thought it was quite a way to end 2018 !
No mobiles or cameras are allowed in the inside of the temple but I managed to grab a quick shot to try and show just how many people were already there at 8am on a Monday ! Once inside you are to make your offering and then make your wish and pray to the gods. The belief from there is that if you make 11 rounds (pradakshinas) of the temple (walking at quite a pace, I must say) and on each round touch the idol and pray again, that your prayers will come true. Once the wish comes true you are to return to the temple and complete 108 pradakshinas to show gratitude and thanks to the gods.
Max and I really enjoyed completing our 11 rounds and seeing everyone so devoted to the temple and its beliefs. So many people were there completing their 108 circumambulations of the inner shrine, ticking off each lap on their pink or yellow card. The signs are clear that you should not be focusing on the number of laps but on God and his power and love. By the number of people completing 108 laps yesterday, it may be just the place we need to make our wishes come true.
We are hopeful that we will need to return to Chilkur to complete our 108 rounds in the future. I highly entertaining morning - so happy we made it there before we leave.
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| As we arrived, there was a fight going on a the entrance- it was all about a man trying to charge for people parking their car - the whole temple is free, so to charge for parking was frowned upon. |
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| the main street of the village of Chilkur |
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| We left our shoes and entered the temple |
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| We hoped our shoes would still be in this little stand when we returned. |
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| It was obvious that they get HUGE crowds with barriers set up to manage the crowd. |
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| Max removing all his negativity by smashing his coconut |
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| The coconuts of the few people in front of us - imagine how many there would be if 100,000 people visit weekly ?? |
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| Some of the people making there rounds of the temple |
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| These are the cards that help you keep track of your laps |
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| the very simple temple exterior |
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| anyone up for a hair donation ? |
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| the lovely streets of Chilkur |
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