All gods at one place - Surendrapuri near Yadagirigutta

"You can have the Darshan of all the gods in one place" Whether it’s the vanavasam of Lord Rama or the churning of the Ksheera Sagaram (Milky Ocean), the newly opened mythological museum ‘Kunda Satyanarayana Kala Dhamam’ presents Indian mythology to devotees, especially youngsters, in a simplified manner.

A 60-km drive away from the city, this museum at Surendrapuri near Yadagirigutta has given a great opportunity to the devotees to get acquainted with the fascinating events of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata and other Puranas. All the important events are carved out in the form of eye-catching sculptures employing ultra-modern artistic techniques. That’s not all, this sprawling 18-acre set up also has famous replicas of all the important temples and gods such as Kaashi Viswanath, Kolkata Kali, Madhura Meenakshi, Tirumala Balaji, Shirdi Saibaba, Palani Kumara Swami and Ayodhya Rama.

“The best part about this place is that you can have the darshan of all the Gods in one place,” says Sachchidanda, one of the visitors who came all the way from Raigarh of Maharashtra to visit the centre says, “It’s like a pilgrimage of a life time.” The 36-feet high sculptures depicting Lord Krishna, enlightening Arjuna with message of the Bhagavad Gita, even as the the armies get ready for war at Kurukshetra, is simply spell binding. Also worth mentioning are the sculptures of Lord Vishnu along with his weapons and that of Goddess Lakshmi as she saves Gajendra from the clutches of the crocodile. Equally fascinating is the sculpture of Balakrishna who’s shown dancing on the the snake-king Kaliya.

The brain child of a single man, Kunda Satyanarayana, Kaladhamam was established so that “devotees can go back feeling as though they’ve visited all the holy places under one roof.” Satyanarayana got this idea a decade ago and he constructed the centre in the memory of his son Surendra who passed away at a young age. “I always wanted to do something in his memory and zeroed in on this idea when I realised that it was impossible for anybody to visit all the temples in one life time.” Satyanarayana disposed all his property and pumped in about Rs 6 crore to complete this project which he entrusted to Chennai based sculptor C.Rajendran, who is the man behind making Khairatabad Ganesha every year. “It was a challenging task for me,” he adds.