Sujanam Vyajanam Manye | Charuvamsha Samudbhavam |
Aathmanamcha Paribramhya | Paritapam Nivaranam ||

Hand held fans (which is made of bamboo) helps in reducing the heat. Similarly, good people (Sajjana) born in good families, help others to get comfort facing any difficulties.

This year the Dugaparmeshwari Temple, Bantakal is preparing for its 60th anniversary celebration. At this juncture, temple is well established and cherished due to the hard work of lots of volunteers and their sevas in temple.

Lots of people worked hard to complete the difficult task of building the temple and to make it popular in surrounding area. It will not be wrong if we can add those people to the list of great people (Mahapurushas). Most of them are no more.

The decade before temple was created (1930’s), our community had problem of finding purohits. At that time we used to depend on other community purohits for any priest/vaidic work. Our community people identified this major problem and started working to solve it. This was not a simple task. Late Sri Nire Shyama Nayak was the one among few volunteers who took this issue seriously and started working on it. Sri Shyama Nayak started educating the community people and asked them to send young boys who can go for learning priest/vaidic education.

In Saraswath community vaidics and well-learned people were there. But inspite of being a branch of Saraswath community, Rajapur Saraswath’s had difficulty in finding a suitable guru. Also most of the people did not agree to take up difficult reponsibility . In spite of all these difficulties and problems Sri Shayama Nayak very much determined to find a solution. He met Veda Murthy Kailaje Shivarama Bhat.

Sri Bhat agreed to give vaidic education for our community students.

Sri K Shivaram Bhat was born in an educated vaidic family in 1879 on Mahalaya Amavasya day. Sri K Shivarama Bhat had primary school education in his childhood. Afterwards from his father, Sri Magesha Bhat and grandfather Sri Krishna Bhat he received Sanskrit and Jyotish Shastra education. After that, he continued studying Veda and had vedic education in Shirali Chitrapur Mutt . Later on, he gained lots of knowledge by studying on his own. By this time Sri Bhat was well known in the field of Jyotish Shastra. He also had a good knowledge in AGAMA SHASTRA and AYURVEDA.

After completing his education he served in Sri Venugopla Temple Karkala as a priest. He had six boys and was known to lead a simple and satisfied life. Just like the sanskrit saying “Vidya Dadati Vinayam, Vinayat Mapnoti Patrataam”, Sri Bhat was very simple living and soft-spoken person and established a respectful position in society. Just like Sri Devi’s statue design and posture in Sri Durgaparameshwari Temple Bantakal, Sri Bhat had created Dhyana and designed nitya pooja, this can tell us the height of his vedic education. Sri Shivaram Bhat’s creation of eight handed, lion riding Sri Durga Devis Dhyana is like this :

SHANKHAM CHARMADHNUSHACHARUDADHATEEM BABRAMITAM TARJANEEM SAVYESHAKRAMASIMAHESHUMITARAI STIRYAK TRISHULAM BHUJAI SANNADHAM VIVIDHAYUDAI PARIVRATAM MANTRIKUMARIJANAIHI DHYAYAMISTAVARAPRADAM TRINAYANAM SIHADIRUDAAM SHIVAM||

Sri K Shivaram Bhat passed away in 1956 February on Magha Shukla (Ashtami). The treasure, that Sri Shivaram Bhat , passed on to us are his students who are serving in Bantakal and Narake temple.

It is difficult to find simple, educated and broad-minded person like Sri K Shivaram Bhat. Sri K Shivaram Bhat has laid a concrete foundation for Sri Late Nire Shyama Nayak’s dream. Our community is very lucky to get guidance from great personality like Sri Veda Murthy K Shivaram Bhat.