01Vyasa’s three handfuls
The temple’s katha says that after the Kurukshetra war Maharshi Vyasa sought a quiet place for tapas and came to the bank of the Godavari here. Each day after bathing he brought three handfuls of sand and shaped them into Saraswati, Lakshmi and Kali. The place was called Vyasapuri, then Vasara, and now Basar. The Saraswati murti is smeared with turmeric, and devotees eat a little of it as prasad, praying for learning. Near the temple is the Vyasa cave.
02First letters
The rite of aksharabhyasam, a child’s first writing of the alphabet, is the reason most families come. The child sits in a parent’s lap before the Devi and the priest guides the small finger to trace letters in rice or on a slate. On Vasant Panchami and during the Sharad Navaratri the queues stretch down to the river. The temple is about 200 km north of Hyderabad, near the Maharashtra border.
The life of this place
- 20th centuryThe temple is rebuilt and enlarged under the state endowments department.
Basar has a railway station on the Secunderabad–Nanded line, close to the temple.
