Kudal

December 05, 2020

Kudal

Kali temple

Kudal is a small town in Sindudurg district in Maharashtra, Even though it’s not on the itinerary of most tourists, today’s plan was to travel to Kudal.

Rutuvihar Homestay

The family run Rutuvihar homestay is walking distance from Kudal bus station. It's one of the best homestay that I’ve ever been to. The rooms are large and spacious. There is a large common lounge with TV and satellite connection. A coffee machine, washing machine and Wifi are available for the guests- all included in the rent of Rs 500 per night! The husband and wife doctor couple who run this place have taken great pains to do an excellent job.

Kudaleshwar temple

The caretaker of Rutuvihar recommended a nearby hotel called ‘New Satkar’. The hotel has an old world charm to it. Everything here happens at a leisurely pace. But it’s the tranquility of the hotel that’s amazing. It is so quiet inside that you can almost hear the food talking to you. It is an ambience that can’t be fabricated with money. After lunch time, the restaurant closes down for siesta time. It re-opens again for dinner by 7 PM.

Machhindranath temple

In the evening, I went to the ancient Kudaleshwar temple. This is only a short distance from Kudal Bus station. There were only a handful of devotees. A few kids were playing cricket outside the temple. But during the annual festival, the temple takes on a life of its own.

As I was preparing to depart Kudal the next day, the guest in the adjacent rooms at Rituvihar told me about two nearby historical temples. It would have been a real shame if I had missed these two temples. I hired an autorickshaw and proceeded to the Machhindranath temple. It is located in a small hillock on the outskirts of Kudal. Apart from the temple caretaker, I am the only person here. I try to understand the story of this ancient temple, but he speaks only Marathi. We were not making much progress. There are two boards in Marathi but I can’t read it. An ancient Devi Kali temple is situated in to the paddy fields below the hillock. The location is picture perfect.

View from Devi Kali temple

The legend of Devi Kali and Machhindranath temple: These two temples share a deep connection. In fact, both the temples are in visible from one another. I tried to understand the history of this temple, but my lack of understanding of Marathi is proving to be a big impediment. And this is what I understood. Legend has it that Machhindranath and Kali Devi had a big fight. When the fight became too big to ignore, another God (whose name I do not remember) intervened. An uneasy truce was established between the Machhindranath and Kali Devi. As part of the peace deal, a de-militarized zone was created to separate the two warring parties.

Mulapurush Sthan at Kali Devi temple

As part of the armistice agreement, Machhindranath gets the place on the hillock and Kali had to settle for the paddy fields below. The black stone idol in the Kali temple has a curious feature. The idol is in the general direction of Machhindranath but it’s not directly facing it. This permanent offset of the Kali idol ensures that her furious gaze does not fall on the Machhindranath temple. It’s like Kali Devi is always on guard for any attack from Machhindranath but she doesn’t want to look directly at her adversary. And for the God who mediated the truce; he is supposed to be living in the no man’s land between the two temples. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a temple of his own. There is a small open structure beside it called “Mulapurush Sthan” beside the Devi temple. Not sure what that’s meant to symbolise.

Kali Devi temple

The round trip to both the temples in an autorikshaw took about 1.5 hours. I checked out from Rutuvihar and went to the bus station. The journey continues to Amboli.

Sai Baba temple outsider Kudal railway station is another popular spot. This statue is made of an 5 metal alloy (pancha dhatu).