Gaurala’s ancient ‘Vardan Ganesh’ showers blessings on devotees
   Date :06-Sep-2022

Vardan Ganesh 
 
 
 
By Ramesh Kallepelli
The devotees from all over Vidarbha visit Lord Ganesha temple located at Gaurala village, about three 3 kilometres away from Bhadravati city in the district, to take blessing of the deity. The saffron (Kesari) Ganesh idol at Gaurala village is a very ancient temple in Chandrapur district. The idol installed here is popularly known as ‘Gaurala Ganesh’ and the temple is famous as ‘Shri Varad Vinayak Ganapati Mandir’. This Ganesha temple was also mentioned in ‘Ganesh Purana’.
The huge idol of Lord Ganesha is very ancient and has been sculpted from front to back, which suggests that it was a circular stone. According to experts, there was a big Shiva temple here and an idol of Lord Ganesha was outside the main temple. However, the Shiva temple got destroyed due to some reasons and the Ganesha’s idol became the main attraction of the temple, after which people started considering it as Lord Ganesha temple. Some devotees, who visited the temple earlier,
stated that if any devotee offers prayers and seeks blessings from the Lord Ganesha, he will definitely get the showers with happiness. Following this, the temple became famous as ‘Vardan Ganpanti’ temple.
With the Ganesh festival being celebrated in the country, the devotees all over Vidarbha are visiting the temple to take the blessing of Varad Vinayak Ganapati in Bhadravati. According to Ashok Singh Thakur, well-known historian from Chandrapur, it is difficult to estimate the age of the idol of Lord Ganesha. The temple was constructed in the 12th century by Yadav dynasty kings of Devgiri of Aurangabad, also known as ‘Hemadpanthi’. The evidence suggests that there was a Shiva temple earlier to Lord Ganesh temple in Gaurala village.
With the destruction of Shiva temple, the idol of Ganesha located in the outer part was considered as the main idol. Later, devotees considered it to be the main temple of Lord Ganesha and built a new temple beside it. Moreover, the idol is considered as one of Ashtavinayaks in Vidarbha region, informed Ashoksingh Thakur.
He further stated that there is a very small cave built in the Vakataka dynasty in the 4th to 6th century. There is evidence that the small cave belongs to Vakataka and there are a lot of ancient sites around the Lord Ganesha temple that are unknown to common people, he added.