The first ghat and its ancient temples

The Krishna River enters into Telangana at Tangidi village on the border of Telangana and Karnataka. However, the State government has developed the Krishna Ghat at Krishna village because it is an apt place, which can accommodate a large number of pilgrims and is also well connected with rail and roadways which facilitate easy transportation for the pilgrims.

The Krishna Ghat is about 90 kilometres from the district headquarters of Mahbubnagar, while it is more than 196 kilometres from Hyderabad.

One can reach Krishna ghat by train from Secunderabad and by bus from Mahatma Gandhi Bus Terminus. At present, the government has accorded Krishna village, the gram panchayat status, which comes under Maganur Mandal of Makthal Taluka in Mahbubnagar district.

The village has about 1,500 households and a population of 4,000 people most of them depend on agriculture and petty businesses.

There are three major temples viz., Kshera Lingeswara Swamy Temple, Duttatreya Temple and Balaji Temple. The majority of the population depends on agriculture as the village has good canal connectivity.

While talking about the history of the village Narasimhulu, a coconut vendor at the gate of Ksheralingeswara Swamy Temple says that once upon a time, Krishna village was known as the dockyard of the Nizams.

During Nizam’s regime, this place was used for docking the materials that came from Mumbai, Karnataka and other parts of India by rail. From there, it used to be transported to Hyderabad and Raichur.

“The people who used to work in the dockyard of Nizam settled here and over a period of time these settlements grew bigger and became a village.

Most attractive part of this village is the Ksheralingeswara Swamy Matham. The temple is built with stone blocks with beautiful carvings. It is said that way back in 1950’s there lived a swamy named Ksherialingeswar.

He did ‘Tapasya’ for 12 years and later on he came to Krishna. He died during Sankranthi festival. His graveyard is converted into a Temple, where the lower temple is called the Samadhi and the upper part has a Shiva Temple.

Apart from this, there are three more important temples; the Balaji Temple, Shiva Temple and Duttatreya Temple located on the banks of Krishna River. The Duttatreya Temple is about 150-years-old.

Recently, as part of Pushkara arrangements, the district collector visited our temple and sanctioned seven lakh to upgrade the facilities in the temple.

Devotees from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana region come here to take a holy dip and perform the pooja in this historic temple,” said Chandrasekhar, a committee member of Ksheralingeswara Swamy Temple.