Shivanasamudra Falls

Waterfalls

The Sivanasamudra Falls is on the Kaveri River after the river has found its way through the rocks and ravines of the Deccan Plateau and drops off to form waterfalls. The island town of Shivanasamudra divides the river into twin waterfalls. This creates the fourth largest island in the rivers course. A group of ancient temples are located here and there likely was a village.

This is a segmented waterfall. Segmented waterfalls occur where the water flow is broken into two or more channels before dropping over a cliff, resulting in multiple side by side waterfalls. It has an average width of 305 meters, a height of 98 m, and an average volume of 934 cubic meters / sec. The maximum recorded volume is 18,887 cubic meters / sec. It is a perennial waterfall. The time of best flow are the monsoon season of July to October.

A common misconception about these waterfalls are that the left segment is called Gaganachukki and the right segment is called Bharachukki. In reality the Bharachukki falls [1] are a few kilometers to the south-west of the Gaganachukki falls [2]. This is due to the Kaveri river itself splitting a few kilometers to the south into western and eastern branches [3]. The western branch results in the twin waterfalls of Gaganachukki, whereas the eastern branch results in the Bharachukki falls. The Gaganachukki waterfalls are best viewed from the Shivanasamudra watch tower [4]. Most of the pictures showing the twin waterfalls are taken from that location. There is another approach to the Gaganachukki falls from the Darga Hazrath Mardane Gaib (Imam Ali) [5]. Despite warnings being posted, people climb down the rocks and attempt to view the waterfalls from behind/top, resulting in many fatal accidents. It is 139 km from the city of Bangalore.

Temples

Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple located here is built in the Dravidan style of architecture. Sri Ranganathaswamy here is also referred to as "Madhya Ranga", who is highly revered by Sri Vyshanava devotees among others. Among all the three Rangas, the deity here is believed to represent the youth form of the God and hence is also fondly referred to as 'Mohana Ranga' and 'Jaganmohana Ranga'. Madhya Ranga is an ancient temple housing a beautiful idol, yet being located remotely sees few visitors. The temple often remains closed to visitors as the priest is not punctual, and sadly Karnataka government temple authority has done little to maintain and promote this place. There are three more temples on three other sides of the island.

The ancient Sri Someshwara Temple is another famous temple here at Shivanasamudra. Adi guru Sri Shankaracharya is said to have visited this place and established a "Sri Chakra". Surprisingly, it is believed that the Someshwara Linga here has existed much before the Ranganantha idol and that the Saptarshis were performing pooja and worshipping this Linga.

The Shakthi Devathe temple of Vanadurga Devi is 1 Km away from the Someshwara temple.

Power generation

Asia's First hydro-electric power station is located at the waterfall and is still functional. This station was commissioned by the Diwan of Mysore, Sir K. Seshadri Iyer. The power generated here was initially used in Kolar Gold Fields.