01Krishna in a lump of gopichandana
Narayana Pandita’s Sumadhva Vijaya tells that a ship caught in a storm off Malpe was saved when Madhvacharya waved his cloth from the shore. The grateful captain offered him anything aboard, and he chose a block of gopichandana clay used as ballast. Inside was a murti of the child Krishna holding a churning rod, which tradition says Rukmini had worshipped at Dwarka. Madhvacharya carried it to Udupi singing the Dvadasha Stotra and installed it by the Madhva Sarovara. He gave its worship to eight disciples, the founders of the Ashta Mathas: Palimaru, Adamaru, Krishnapura, Puttige, Shirur, Sodhe, Kaniyooru and Pejavara.
02Kanakadasa’s window and the Paryaya
Kanakadasa, a shepherd-born saint-poet of the 16th century, was kept outside the temple because of his birth. He stood at the back wall and sang to Krishna, and the murti, the temple katha says, turned round to face him as the wall cracked open. The opening is the Kanakana Kindi, and pilgrims still look through it first. Worship passes from one of the eight mathas to the next every two years in the Paryaya ceremony in January, a cycle fixed by Vadiraja Tirtha of Sode in the 16th century. The swamis themselves perform the puja, and the kitchen feeds thousands every day.
The life of this place
- 13th centuryMadhvacharya installs the Krishna murti at Udupi.
- 16th centuryVadiraja Tirtha fixes the two-year Paryaya cycle.
- 16th centuryKanakadasa’s darshan through the back wall, remembered as the Kanakana Kindi.
Men remove their shirts for darshan inside. Paryaya in mid-January of even years is the great festival; Krishna Janmashtami is celebrated as Vitla Pindi.
