Famous Temples in India

Religious Significance

Legends of the place : According to mythology, when Lord Krishna’s wife Rukmini requested her husband for the idol of Balkrishna, the child form of the Lord, Shri Krishna entrusted Vishwakarma with the task of designing the idol. Vishwakarma made a beautiful idol of Balkrishna with the holy saaligrama stone and gave it to Rukmini for worship. The idol, in the course of being worshipped by hundreds of devotees at Dwaraka with the application of sandalwood paste, got completely covered with the sandalwood paste. It is believed that this same idol is now placed at the temple. As a consequence of the great flood that occurred at the end of the era of Lord Krishna, Dwaraka was completely engulfed by the sea. And the sandalwood covered idol of Lord Krishna also got washed away.

Decades passed. And then centuries later, a sailor found the idol in the shape of a hard rock on an island. He began using the rock to balance his ship. Sometimes later, when his ship was faced with a raging sea storm somewhere beyond the west coast of the South Indian Peninsula, Saint Madhvacharya sensing the danger while meditating on the shore, beseeched Lord Vishnu’s mercy to calm down the angry weather. He then signaled the ship with his garment to sail ashore.

After sailing ashore safely, the sailor fell on the Saint’s feet with gratitude and requested him to accept something from his ship as a token of thankfulness. Saint Madhvacharya chose to accept the sandalwood rock as his gift. Later when he happened to break the rock, the idol of Balkrishna emerged from it bit by bit. The Saint was filled with sublime joy and bliss when he realized through his deific vision that it was the same Balkrishna idol that Rukmini worshipped. He immediately decided to bring home the idol of his true devotion to his Matha at Udupi, some 4 km from the shore where he was praying. That shore today is known as the Malpe beach.