Sakta (Amman) · Chikkamagaluru, Karnataka
Sringeri Sharadamba Temple
Sharadamba (Saraswathi) with the Vidyashankara temple
EducationGeneral
The temple in short
- Deity
- Sharadamba (Saraswathi) with the Vidyashankara temple
- Where
- Chikkamagaluru, Karnataka · 13.42N 75.25E
- Usual hours
- 6 am – 2 pm, 4 pm – 9 pm — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?
- Grahas
- Budhan
- Visited for
- The first of Adi Sankara’s four mathas, on the Tunga. Navaratri and Vidyarambham are its days; visited for learning, memory and a weak Budhan.
The sthala purana
Tradition, as it is told at the temple
The story of the founding is told the same way everywhere. Adi Sankara, walking along the Tunga, is said to have seen a cobra spreading its hood over a frog in labour to keep the sun off it. Taking that as a sign of a place where natural enmity had stopped, he settled there.
He established the Sharada Peetham at Sringeri, the first of the four mathas attributed to him, and installed Sharadamba — Saraswathi — as its deity.
What is recorded
Documented history
The Sringeri matha keeps an unbroken line of succession and its own records, which makes its history better documented than that of most Indian religious institutions.
Vidyaranya, one of its heads, is associated in the records with the founding of the Vijayanagara empire, and the Vidyashankara temple on the site was built in that period. It combines Hoysala and Dravidian work, and its twelve outer pillars carry the twelve rasis, arranged so that the sun falls on the pillar of the running solar month — worth a look for anyone who reads a panchangam.
What there is to see
Description
The Sharadamba temple holds the Devi seated with a veena, in a hall of polished granite, and is the centre of the daily worship.
The Vidyashankara temple beside it is the older building and the more interesting one, with its rasi pillars and its finely carved outer walls.
The Tunga runs past the matha and the fish in it are tame and fed by visitors from the bridge. The town is small and the whole complex is walkable.
The temple year
The days it is fullest
Sharada Navaratri is the great season, ending in Vijayadashami, when children are given their first letters in large numbers.
Sankara Jayanti, the Rathotsava and the Chaturmasya observance of the matha head are the other times the town fills.
Getting there, and what else it is called
- Also called
- Sringeri Sharada Peetham, Rishyashringa Giri
- Period
- Matha founded by Adi Sankara; the Vidyashankara temple is a fourteenth-century building
- Reaching it
- Sringeri is in Chikkamagaluru district, about 100 km from Chikkamagaluru town and roughly 100 km inland from Mangaluru through the ghats. Mangaluru and Shivamogga are the nearest railway stations.
Where it is
Others within reach
Nearest first, by straight-line distance
- Horanadu Annapoorneshwari Temple 21.4 km · Sakta (Amman)
- Sri Manjunatha Temple, Dharmasthala 54.1 km · Saiva
- Kateel Durgaparameshwari Temple 54.2 km · Sakta (Amman)
- Sri Krishna Matha, Udupi 54.8 km · Vaishnava
- Anegudde Vinayaka Temple 58.9 km · Ganapathi
- Sri Mookambika Temple, Kollur 68.2 km · Sakta (Amman)
Add what you know
Been to this temple? The things that change — whether the hours on this page were right, whether the sannidhi was open, how long the queue was on a Saturday — are exactly what no printed source keeps current, and what the next person travelling here needs.
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- Is anything on this page wrong or out of date?
- A photograph of the gopuram, the tank, or the notice board
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Parihaaram is traditional practice, offered for devotion and peace of mind; it is not a guaranteed cure of any condition. Temple hours change with festivals and the season, so check before travelling.