YADAGIRIGUTTA: An ambitious architectural and religious marvel is taking shape just outside Hyderabad as the Telangana government develops the Narasimha Swamy temple in Yadagirigutta as a religio-tourist site.
“Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will enter the temple complex on Dasara next year to mark its inauguration,” says G. Kishen Rao, vice-chairman of Yadagirigutta Temple Development Authority, reports The Hindu.
It is nothing short of an engineering feat as the old temple which existed on 0.59 acres, including the ‘garbha gudi’, is being enlarged to 4.14 acres with a 26-ft ‘Mada Veedhi’ and 1.7 acres ‘Brahmotsavam’ area.
“We are building a retaining wall that at places plunges down to 110 feet. At places, it is three layers,” says B. Ravi, the project director, as workers assemble iron rods for the massive retaining wall.
To put things in perspective, the hillock is 504 metres above the sea level. A jib crane that towers over four storeys pours concrete into the completed sections.
“It will be a black granite temple with the main ‘gopuram’ reaching upto 77 ft. We are following the ‘agama shastras’ and Vedas for design elements according to Vaishnava sampradayam (tradition). The garbha gudi is not being touched as it is ‘swayambu’,” says Anand Sai, who is the art director for the project.
Sai, who was earlier the art director for Telugu and Tamil movies like Badrinath, New and Yamadonga, has been roped in for visualising and executing the project.
Already, ribbons of freshly laid asphalt girdle the hill. The two-way path to the hill is being made one-way by creating another road for the return journey. The first part of the project is the temple, a township at the foothills sprawled over 250 acres is the next step. “Once it is finished, it will be a marvel visible from a radius of 10 km,” says Mr. Ravi as he talks of the 108-feet Anjaneya statue in the south east corner.
On the outskirts of Hyderabad, off the ORR in Koheda village, sculptors are giving shape to the blocks of black granite in a makeshift workshop.
