Mangaluru: Padumale, located in the Puttur Taluk of the Dakshina Kannada district, is 60 kms from the district headquarters in Mangaluru, 16 kms from Puttur and 304 kms from Bengaluru.
Padumale is surrounded by the taluks of Kasargod, Sullia, Kanhangad and Manjeshwar.
Tulu is the preferred language of the region, which is spread across 1,216 hectares of land and is home to 3,557 people.
It is also the birthplace of the legendary Tulunadu twin heroes, Koti and Chennaya, whose tales have been immortalised in the Tuluvas folklore and whose memory lives on in the Padumale Koti-Chennaya temple.
The heroic twins lived between 1500 and 1600 AD and were killed in a battle with King Perumal Ballal. Their dying wish, it is said, was for a temple to be built at their birthplace in their memory.
Koti-Chennaya are considered great warriors and are worshiped as deities. The residents of Padumale believe that, as the twins’ dying wish wasn’t fulfilled, their hometown remained barren for decades.
There are 262 Garadis (memorial temples) in the twins’ memory across the undivided Dakshina Kannada, Kasaragod and Mumbai but, one wasn’t built at their birthplace till recently.
Padumale also houses a park for medicinal plants called “Deyi Baideti Medicinal Park” and was installed by the Karnataka State Forest Department. The park is named after Deyi Baideti, the mother of the legendary twins, Koti-Chennaya, and a legendary expert of Ayurvedic medicine.
Owing to Padumale’s rich history, it is a bustling tourist hot spot and is definitely worth at least one visit.
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