Ganagapur Temple (గాణగాపూర్ / गाणगापूर)

Lord Dattatreya is an embodiment of all the energies of Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva - the Hindu Holy Trinity. Lord Dattatreya is born to Sage Atri and his wife, Anasuya Devi. He is known as the Gurudeva Datta - The Guru of All Gurus.

Ganagapur - A Brief History:

Shreekshetra Ganagapur, One of the most famous Dattatreya Peethas, is associated with Shri Narasimha Saraswati Swami, an incarnation of Lord Dattatreya. It stands on the bank of the river Bhima in Afzalpur taluka in Gulbarga district of Karnataka. This Nirguna Math is adorned with the Nirguna Padukas. The water of the rivers Bhima and Amaraja, especially at the spot of their confluence, are considered extremely holy.


You got to read Ganagapur as గాణగాపూర్ in Telugu and as गाणगापूर in Hindi.

The first incarnation of Lord Dattatreya in Kaliyug is Shripad Shri Vallabha (1320 AD - 1350 AD) who is born at Pithapuram in the West Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh State. You can get more information of Shripad Shri Vallabha here. Shri Vallabha spent most of his life time at a place called Kuravpur in Mehaboob Nagar District of Andhra Pradesh (on the border with Karnataka State).

Swamy Narasimha Saraswati (1378 AD−1458 AD) is considered as the second incarnation of Lord Dattatreya. He lived at Karanjapur which is modern Lad-Karanja in Maharashtra. His surname is Kale. He was born in Deshastha Brahmin family.

Ganagapur Temple has the sacred "Padukas" (foot-ware) of Sri Narasimha Saraswati. You can get more information here on Sri Narasimha Saraswati.

Reach Ganagapur:

We started off at Hyderabad and took to Mumbai National Highway (NH9)which is exceptionally good despite the fact that it is just a two lane road. Four laning of the road is under process and I think it would take hell of time to finish it. We briefly stopped at AP Tourism Haritha Restaurant which is quite decent.


We reached Humnabad in Karnataka State after passing through Zaheerabad in Andhra Pradesh State. You need to stick to the Mumbai Highway By-Pass and within two kilometers, you would see another National Highway (NH 218)taking a left towards Gulbarga (the name has been changed to Kalburgi). The Highway from Hyderabad to Humnabad is pretty good and the Highway from Humnabad to Gulbarga is too good with excellent scenery. If you are planning, try to take this route during the daytime. Sadly, both ways, we took this route during the nights.

Once you reach Gulbarga, take a right turn once you cross a huge tower and that road goes to Afzalpur. You need to ask for Afzalpur Road, just in case you miss out anywhere. It is a by-pass and you don't need to go into Gulbarga Town at all. From Gulbarga, Ganagapur is 35 Kilometers away. It is State Highway 22.


People from Karnataka, Iam sorry to say this but you guys need to really concentrate on Infrastructure. The 35 Kilometer drive from Gulbarga to Ganagapur took us an hour !! The road is so horrible, you have potholes every few meters. Out of 35 KM, only 5 KM has got no potholes, rest is hopeless. The Government seems to just ignore development!! If Government needs to sit up and take note of the fact that Shiridi Sai Baba devotees flock to Lord Dattatreya Temples and you got Millions of Baba devotees in Andhra Pradesh. If you plan to attract these people and improve the areas in your state, you need to first concentrate on infrastructure !! If not, since people have no confidence on the rulers but on God would still go - Only in Hundreds. You improve infrastructure, you can see lakhs visiting those places.

By the time we reached Ganagapur on this horrendous road, it ate away our crucial time as it was already dark and driving in dark on such a road is suicidal !! But, do we have another option ??

Important Note: If you are not so religious,DONOT visit Ganagapur on Full Moon (Pournima) Days. One guy there told us that you will see people only on Pournima days and rest of the days, they would be chasing flies and dogs.

We didn't know about this and we reached there bang on on Rakhi Pournima !! The village is dusty and the visibility in this dust is very low as there are hundreds of cars and buses creating a huge traffic chaos. There is NO presence of Police here.


Generally, you can get accommodation at any of the Pujaris house. If you are planning to visit on a Pournima day, make sure you book everything well before. One Pujari there helped us with Puja the next day. His name is Shri Dinanath Pujari and you can reach him at 09741427093 and 09448902717. There are lots of Mutt's which can provide you basic accommodation. DONOT expect A/C and Western toilet accommodation in Ganagapur.

We were unable to find any place to stay and we had to to make the trip back to Gulbarga at 10PM !! Lucky for us, I took a printout of hotel numbers in Gulbarga which is fourth largest city in Karnataka state. Gulbarga forms the Kannada speaking areas of the erstwhile Nizam State. This entire district is backward. There is lot of Marathi influence in these areas as you can see more number of Marathis than Kannadigas in Ganagapur. Visitors wise, people from Telangana are in majority and in no time, this place would become another Shiridi where Telugus outnumber Marathi visitors. Mark my words, in another 10 years, you would be seeing Telugu sign boards there in Ganagapur as you see lot of Telugu sign boards in Shiridi!!

I booked at Hotel Heritage Inn which is near City Market, SV Temple Road, Gulbarga. Their Phone Number is 08472-224093/94. Decent Hotel with A/C rooms costing Rs.950/- and non-A/C costing around Rs.600/-. They have a Restaurant too and food is quite good. We booked this unknown Hotel at 11PM and we were lucky that we didn't had any bad surprises waiting. We had a really good sleep rest of the night.

Next day, we reached Ganagapur by 11AM and a huge swarm of people were waiting for us in the Temple and at one point of time, we thought of giving up the Darshan too. Such was the rush. We got Mr.Dinanath Pujari and he asked us to come back after 2PM when he can help us for a Puja costing around Rs.2500/-

We left for a visit to Audambar (Fig / Kalpavriksha) Tree on the banks of River Bhima. This place is around 5KM from the main temple. It is said that Narasimha Saraswati's presence is felt at this place in Nirguna Rupa and so, many people sit there and read the Guru Charitra which was written by Shri Saraswati Gangadhar during the 15-16 centuries. The book has mainly the life story of Shri Narasimha Saraswati , his philosophy and some related stories.


We spent sometime there and went back for Darshan. We could able to conduct the Puja successfully after pushing and heckling through people. My experience of visiting Tirumala more than 40 times while doing MBA there in Tirupati helped me in "People Management" !!

We started off from Gulbarga at 6:45PM and reached Home at 11PM after a very tiring but a sacred journey.