Bhuleshwar Shiva temple

Quick details:

Date visited	Trip duration	Distance from Pune
Mar 20th, 2011	Half a day	55 Km/50 min

Mythological history of Bhuleshwar temple:  

As per the mythological story, Lord Shiva and Devi Parvati had a fight and angry Shiva came here to meditate. Then Devi Parvati, dressed as a tribal woman danced to fascinate Shiva and he got attracted to her beauty. Finally, they went to Kailash parbat (कैलाश पर्बत ) and got re-united. The place got its name from this story. “To sedate” means “bhul” in Marathi. As Shiva got attracted towards Paravati, hence Shiva got another name - Bhuleshwar. Hence the name of the temple.

Archeological history of Bhuleshwar temple:

Bhuleshwar (भुलेश्वर) temple was built in 13^th century (1230 AD) and is dedicated to Lord Shiva. It was previously a fort called “Mangalgadh” (मंगलगढ़). Later the temple was invaded by Aurangzeb, a Muslim ruler and was reconstructed again. The entrance of temple is called “Gaimukhi” which dates back to Shivaji Maharaj’s era.

Here we go:

Bhuleshwar is about 55 km from Pune on NH-9/SH-151 (Sholapur road). The way to Bhuleshwar is pretty straightforward. Drive on Sholapur highway for about 34 km and after crossing two toll plazas, one can see the sign-board for directions to Bhuleshwar and few other places (refer to the photograph) The placement of the sign-board is a bit confusing. It points to continue on the same road (sholapur) but that is not the case. One has to take a right turn here and drive for another 8 kms (as mentioned on the sign-board).

We drove through the ghats (last 3-4 km) and reached on the hill top where the temple is situated. We bought the pooja thali and proceeded towards the temple. The whole temple is loaded with beautiful carvings - at the entrance, on the inner walls, outer walls, pillars  etc. - with such a complexity & precision that one wonders if the temple is really built by humans!


One famous thing about this temple is that all the sweets offered by the devotees to the God disappear almost immediately, no matters what amount is offered! We inquired from the priest and he confirmed the same. When we asked him to try it with our sweets, he told us to come again in the morning and then he will show it to us. Well, we will have to wait until our next visit then!

After offering the sweets, saying prayers & a brief talk with priest, we started walking around & could not stop appreciating the beautiful carvings.  Apart from  other thousands of small statues carved on the walls, the temple has a huge Nandi बैल carved completely out of stone. There was also a carving of Ganeshji in woman form.

We spent some time walking around the pillars and examining some statues. Many of them were partially broken (perhaps they got destroyed when the temple was invaded). The pillars and statues that you see are constructed from black besalt. Later on, we settled down to eat the sandwitches we were carrying with us. The view from there was breathtaking. We rested for a while and started our journey back to Pune.

Some more pics:

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Driving directions:

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