When we shared our Travel Guide for Borra Caves, we briefly talked about how it's related to the faith of local tribes in this region of Andhra Pradesh state of India. There are various legends related to Borra caves but like many other places in India, there is a common theme about Faith in every legend.
As per one of the legends when Borra caves were discovered, a cow was grazing on the top of the caves, dropped 60 meters through a hole in the roof. After this, the cow survived. The cowherd while searching for the cow came across the caves. He found a stone inside the cave that resembled a Lingam, which he interpreted as the Lord Shiva who protected the cow. The village folks who heard the story believed it and since then they have built a small temple for Lord Shiva outside the cave. People come to the temple for worship and the cave to get a glimpse of the Lingam.
All photographs you see in this post are clicked around the same temple which is just at the entrance of the Borra caves. Not sure which tribe people were doing the worship at that point of time, but various tribes like Jatapu, Porja, Kondadora, Nookadora, valmiki etc live around Borra caves and visit this place for their faith in this place.
Another lyrical legend is that the Shiva Lingam representing the Hindu God Lord Shiva, is found deep in the caves and above which is a stone formation of a cow. Cow is also know as Kamadhenu in hindu mythology. Then it was also concluded that the udder of this cow is the source of the Gosthani River which originates from here, flows through Vizianagram and Visakhapatnam districts before meeting into the Bay of Bengal near Bheemunipatnam.
When you go inside the cave with a guide, the guide would show you various formation which are most of the times related to faith. Like Ganesha sitting on top of a rock, shape on a rock which looks like Sai Ram. There are many such things. One another that I remember is a small shivlingam at the end of the cave where water keeps dripping from the top and touches exactly on top of the lingam.
If we think a little more about it, these legends are majorly driven by beliefs & faith of local. That's how they start defining places and others start following. There is nothing wrong or right but more about the beliefs.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
- Manage your waste well and don’t litter
- Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
- Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
- Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
- Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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