Shri Gersappa Lakshminarayana Temple

Shri Gersappa Lakshminarayana Temple

Shri Gersappa Lakshminarayan Temple of Lord Vishnu is located at Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada District of Karnataka.The temple is believed to be
established about 500 years ago by a member from Mankikar Family.

Temple Legend

The family of Manki called Mankikars lived between 1400 – 1500 AD, during the time of Jains’ reign in Nagar Sansthana, the Mankikars family had a large scape of area in Manki and also at Susgadi town of Bhatkal Taluka. They had several inhabitants in their area. Once a quarrel took place amongst the inhabitants, due to which occupants in Manki Village were irritated.

At the time of Ganesh Chaturthi, these irritated inhabitants took the reprisal. They brought bunch of Bananas, which was to be used as an offering during the Pooja, and injected poison with a needle and gave it to the person who was supposed to do the pooja on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi. The landowner prepared Rasayana of the Bananas and adored Ganesh. On completion of the Pooja, the family consumed Rasayana, and died because of the poison injected into the bananas. Fortunately, one of the girls of Gersappa family, married to the Mankikar family, was saved, since she had gone to Honnavar for her first delivery.

The widow with the new born survived and brought him up. Once when the youngster grew up, he brought the matter to the attention of the King, who inturn punished the accused by giving death penalty. Even though the youngster was happy initially on hearing about the death penalty, he slowly started feeling sad for his attitude of revenge later, which he believed was a sin. One day he had a dream in which an old man told him that he would be digging the tank in a spot adjacent from where he would get two Idols viz. Janardhana and Laxminarayana. Out of which, Janardhana ought to be installed at Manki and Shri Laxminarayana ought to be installed at Bhatkal. Then his guilt would go. Accordingly, this temple was constructed and was known as Shri Gersappa Laxminarayan Temple.

Vanabhojana is celebrated annually on Kartik Bahul Sashti (in November).