Udupi Krishna Temple

Udupi is a devine place in the costal districts situated about 60Kms from Managlore, it is a fairly large and rapidly growing city. Its district headquarter once Udupi become a district. The statue here is said to be installed by the great saint Madhwacharya in 13th century. There are other two temples here in Udupi, Chandreshwara and Ananteswara, which are said to be the oldest temples in Udupi. The attraction of this temple is "Kanakana Kindi", this is a small hole through which devoties get the darshan of Sri Krishan, it is on the back side of temple's Gharbha Gudi, it said that in 16th century when the Kanakadasa, the great devotee of Krishan visited Udupi, he was not allowed to get inside the temple for Darshan, instead he was tied to the pillars of stone, on the back side of the temple, and was beaten like hell by the brahmins, for the very reason of entering the temple. Krisha then truned back, the back side wall got a hole to give darshan to Kanakadasa, since then it is called "Kanakana Kindi", and even now people get darshan through this Hole.

There are different storied behind the installation of this statue here, one popular goes like this. The main statue of Sri Krishna at Dwaraka got completely covered by gopichandanam ( holy sandlewood). A sailor from Dwaraka loaded this heavy lump in his boat as ballast, in one of his trips along the west coast. The ship was caught in a terrible storm while sailing in the western coast of Malpe. When the meditating Sri Madhvacharya sensed this by his 'aparoksha' or divine jnana (knowledge), he got the ship safely to the shore by waving the end of his saffron robe and quietening the storm. The pleased captain of the ship offered Sri Madhvacharya anything in the ship in return. Sri Madhvacharya asked for the sandlewood peice containing the statue of Sri Krishna. Later as the story goes, Sri Madhvacharya took it to the lake, purified it and installed it in the matt.

There is another interesting place nearby, it is the Malpe beach and Saint mary's Island, one can visit these places of visiting the temple. Saint Mary's should be visitited before 5PM in the evening, after that it is closed. One can also visit a Rama-mandir built on the way to Kukke Subramanya.