Hyderabad Jagannath Temple

Site Name: Jagannath Temple

Site Type: A Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Krishna

Location:  Banjara Hills, Hyderabad city, Telungana state, India

Highlights: A replica of the famous Puri Jagannath temple; a popular temple of Hyderabad city

Nearest Railway Station: Hyderabad

Nearest Airport: Hyderabad

How to reach: Well connected by road, rail and air

Hotel: All sorts of options are available in Hyderabad 

Restaurants: Hyderabad city has no shortage of restaurants of all varieties

Hyderabad is an important city in South India. It is the capital city of the newly formed Telangana state as well as Andhra Pradesh state of India. Hyderabad, which is also called as 'the city of Pearls' is a historical city. In the last two decades, the city became very popular thanks to the IT companies. There are many popular and varieties of tourist spots such as forts, palaces, lakes, masjids and temples located in this city. Let us explore one such popular site named Jagannath temple in this article.

Highlights:

• God - Jagannath
• A popular temple in Hyderabad city
• A replica of the popular Puri Jagannath temple

Introduction:

Jagannath is a popular deity in many states of India such as Orissa, Chattisgarh and West Bengal. The main and original temple of Jagannath is located in Puri city in Orissa state. Jagannath means 'the Lord of Universe'. Although there are different versions of identifying Jagnnath, the popular belief is that he is none but Lord Krishna. Jagannath is always found as a part of a triad of deities that includes his brother Balabhadra aka Balarama and his sister Subhadra. Unlike other Hindu deities, these murtis are not made of stone or metal, but of wood. Also, there is no artistic aspect to the idol. Each of these three idols has a massive square head merging with the chest without any demarcation of the neck. The arms are inserted in a line with the lip. They have very large and round eyes. They appear only upto their waist. As per some popular legends, it is believed that these idols remained unfinished.

Temple Layout:

Jagannath temple is located in the posh Banjara Hills area in Hyderabad city. It is a replica of the original Puri Jagannath Temple in terms of design but not in terms of size. The temple is very new and it was built in 2009 CE. However, thanks to its peaceful location and the serenity that prevails inside the temple, it has become one of the popular tourist destinations of Hyderabad city.

The entire temple is built as per the Orissa temple architecture style. The entire structure is built using sand stone and hence it is in red color. One of the major highlights of the temple is the vimana of the main shrine which is around 70 feet in height. 

A tall Garuda flag staff and the regular flag staff apart from Garuda idol are found facing towards the main shrine.

The massive main shrine houses three main deities Jagannath (Krishna), Balarama and Subhadra, all made of wood. They appear similar to the original deities of Puri temple. The entrance have the small bas relief images of Shiva and Brahma as the dwarapalas, which is notable unique feature. The entrance also has the carvings of Dashavatars (ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu). The main shrine has a vast front side mandapa. The entire shrine is located atop a raised platform. The vimana of the shrine is very high and attractive. There are many intricate sculptures found on the vimana as well as the external walls of the main shrine.

The temple also has the following sub-shrines. Each of these sub-shrines has its own Orissa style attractive vimana.

• Ganesha
• Kasi Vishwanath (Shiva Linga)
• Vimala (Parvati)
• Maha Lakshmi
• Hanuman
• Nava Graha (nine planets) 

Some of the niche images such as lion faced goddess, boar faced goddess and the idol in front of Vimala's shrine, lion standing on top of elephant are all unique.

The inner walls as well as the exterior walls of this temple are full of relief images and stucco images representing various deities, puranic and epic tales as well as amorous images.

Happy travelling.