Sheebi Narasimha temple, Tumkur

While I was searching for places around Tumkur, I came across this temple in Sheebi. It reportedly had some old age paintings on it. We’d left from Blr as early as 4 AM in the morning and reached Tumkur by about 5 ish. There was no sunlight yet, so we didn’t see a point in driving to Devarayana Durga or Mandaragiri that early. So decided to drive to Sheebi which is 25 kms from Tumkur. After driving 25kms there was no sign of any temple, so we stops at a tea shop to enquire. He pointed us to some lightings nearby. Apparently Sheebi Narasimha temple was celebrating its annual festival. “There was so much rush, it was difficult to go inside. You better park the car here and walk, else they’ll charge Rs 50 for car” tea shop owner advised.

 

We followed it. As we neared the temple the crowd was minimal. Roadside shops selling sweets, flowers, pooja items etc were just opening up, with many vendors still sleeping around their shops. I felt leaving the car alone at the roadside, so went back and drove it close to the temple. Temple would open at 6 AM and it was just that time.

There we no ancient paintings to be found. Temple hardly had anything unique. I asked an elderly man nearby- he said the temple has been renovated sometime back and there’s no such paintings. The various idols you see on top is what we have. He also told the history of the temple: “Long long ago when a gentleman was cooking food using a stone, he died bleeding blood. Local priest had a dream in which lord came and instructed him to construct a temple for him. When preist told there’s no source of water, god asked them to dig at a nearby place, wherein they found lot of water…”

We spent few more minutes around the temple premises and came back. 

Not a great place to visit and not worth travelling all the way. But we had nothing else to do at that time, so something is better than nothing.

 

How to go to Sheebi?:

Sheebi is 25 kms from Tumkur on Tumkur-Pune highway. Temple is very close to highway, but there’s no direct entrance from highway. Temple is slightly covered when viewed from highway. If you cruise you’ll definitely miss it. After driving for 25kms, when you get a flyover, do not go over it. Take left, take right under the flyover then left. Alternatively you can go straight on flyover, take u turn after driving for another 1 km. There’re couple of tea shops on the left side