Gokarna, a tourist town housing multiple religious legends

Gokarna is a beautiful town blessed by the nature's best. It is home to the dense evergreen forests, long beautiful beaches, and number of religious sites and temples. Plus, there also circles several religious legends. Visit the town to experience all aspects of it, and for accommodation choose from the best hotels in Gokarna.

Gokarna, a tranquil village in the state of Karnataka, is one of the most sought-after destinations in south India. It is a beautiful small town where the nature abides at its best, plus is a tranquillity-replete destination to find ultimate solitude. The town is amongst the handful of the places in the world, where one finds two contrast but somehow related aspects. These being, the traditional religious significance and the hippie environment of the beaches.

Gokarna, is one the most sacred places in southern India. The town is situated on a place which is the conflux of two mighty rivers of the south, namely Aghanashini and Gangavali. Both of these rivers occupy huge significance amongst the locals and are viewed with utter respect. It is an interesting fact that the conflux of both the rivers forms a shape that resembles to shape of a cow's ear. This also explains the reason for the town to be called so, that is Gokarna, which means a cow's ear.

Meanwhile, the town is also emerging as a popular tourist destination as it is home to a mass of tourist attraction. Plus, there are multiple hotels in Gokarna to make one's trip a memorable experience. Nonetheless, coming back to Gokarna legends, there is another popular belief behind how the town derived its name. The belief is actually a religious legend that states that during the ancient era, it is here where Hindu lord Shiva was born out of the ear of a cow, and therefore the place is called Gokarna.

There is another legend that circulates in the town, with which one will ultimately come across while in the town. The legend goes like during the era of Ramayana, the demon lord Ravana visited Gokarna after receiving Atmalinga from lord Shiva. The lord granted Ravana with Atmalinga, which is supposed to be a powerful weapon, after getting pleased with his very difficult tapasya. The lord advised him to not to put the weapon on the ground, as Atmalinga will get fixed wherever it made contact with the ground. Since Atmalinga was very destructive weapon, so lord Ganesha (lord Shiva's son) didn't wanted Ravana to posses it. So he disguised himself and offered to Ravana to hold Atmalinga and then kept in on the ground. Fierce Ravana in extreme anger tried to pull out Atmalinga off the ground, which ultimately broke the weapon into pieces. These pieces scattered all over the region and thus resulted in the construction of multiple temples in the village.

Today, these temples are amongst the most revered temples in the region, and are often flocked by devotees. The temples get most devotees-busy during Shivaratri, which is the festival of lord Shiva. Other than that, many of these temples are also popular tourist spots. The good thing is that there are number of cheap hotels in Gokarna that are situated in proximity to the prime temples, which makes the tourists to conveniently access them.

Though the town is pretty constrained in area, but there are enough tourist sites and attractions that make one's trip of the town worth experiencing. To name the most popular tourist sites in the town include: Om Beach, Kudle Beach, Gokarna Beach, Paradise Beach, Yaana, Mahabaleshwar Temple, Maha Ganpati Temple, Bhadrakali Temple, Sathodi Falls, Lalguli Falls, and Anshi National Park etc.