Shri Ganesh Mandir, Rayalkeri- Honnavar

Shri Ganesh Mandir is located at Rayalkeri, Honnavar in the district of Uttara Kannada- Karnataka.Rayalkeri (Rayale + Keri) means a street belonging to the king. Interestingly, the official name of the place is a slight variation with the same meaning – it is called RoyalKeri.

History:
The Ganesh temple in this small town is a fairly recent one. It started with the initiative of the current archak of thetemple – Sri Raghavendra Srinivas Bhat. His father Sri.Srinivas Narasimha Bhat was the archak at the local Lord Venkatramana temple. On one night he had a dream that there is a stone idol of Lord Ganesh deposited in the nearby well by our Goud Saraswat Brahmins (GSB) ancestors. Subsequently they decided to search the idol in the well and they did find a statue of Lord Ganesh.However they did not have the finance & other resources to establish a proper temple for the pooja. Then the opportunity came in the year 2000.

Sri.Raghavendra Bhat, the son of Srinivas Bhat is well known for his knowledge of the horoscope and has resolved the distress of many people by recommending relevant parihars ( solutions in terms of poojas). He did such a service to Sri.Jagannath Govindrao Shenoy from the family that runs a well known business in Mangalore. He approached Sri. Shenoy for some financial assistance for building a simple garbhagudi for Lord Ganesha. Sri. Shenoy generously donated for constructing not just the entire temple in 2000 but also a local sabhagriha in 2005.

The wooden carving work of this beautiful temple done here is very rare to see.Over a period of time the temple is renowned for fulfilling the wishes of devotees who pray for their desires.