Did you know that the Kadlekai Parishe - Groundnut Fair, was initiated by Hirya Kempegowda in the year 1537 by the founder of Bangalure, to appease Nandi, the Bull, near Dodda Basava temple, near the Bull Temple road at Basavanagudi in Bangalore city?
Kadlekai Parishe, also spelled Kadalekai Parishe, ಕಡಲೆಕಾಯಿ ಪರಿಷೆ in Kannada, is an annual groundnut fair held in Basavanagudi suburb of Bangalore city on the last Monday of Karthika Masa (month of November), a grand colourful festival that celebrates groundnuts in all its varities, forms and glory.
The initiative to celebrate this festival of groundnuts was taken by Hirya Kempegowda, the founder of Bangalore (now Bengaluru) in the year 1537 to help farmers of the region from the marauding onslaught of rogue bulls destroying their groundnut agricutlurual fields during the harvest season on the particular day of Full Moon in the month of Kartik (November-December) . At that time, Basavanagudi suburb was surrounded by villages like Sunkenahalli, Gavipuram Guttahalli, Mavalli, Dasarahalli and other places where groundnut was cultivated. Kempegowda then built a temple on a hill top on the Bull Temle road in Basvanagudi, a suburb of Bangalore, exclusively for the Nandi, the bull (ಎತ್ತು), mount of Lord Shiva, with the prayer of solemn promise that farmers would bring the first harvest of the groundnut crop and offer it to Nandi at the exclusively built temple, in total dedication, year after year. The farmers offer their groundnut crop early in the morning of the Last Monday day of Kartik month by weighing it on a scale at the Bull temple.
There is also a story conforming to the above belief that an Idol of Basava was found close to their fields by the farmers, and that the Idol was noted to be growing rapidly. The farmers nailed an iron peg on the head of the idol (which is visible in the form of a trishula even to this date) to stop its growth, and consecrated the Nandi (bull) in the Bull Temple. It is a belief that the night on which the Kadlekai Parishe or Groundnut fair used to end, the stone idol of big Bull, Nandi used to take its real form as an animal bull and eat up all the groundnut and peels left overnight on the streets.
During this two-day grand fair held near the Dodda Basvana Gudi temple and the Dodda Ganesha Templem in Basavanagudi, in a stretch of 2 km of the Bsavanaguid road, hundreds of farmers (more than 500) of the state of Karnataka and its neighbouring regions bring their first produce of the Groundnuts ( raw, roasted, and even boiled groundnuts.) not only for symbolic offering to Nandi, the Bull, at the Dodda Basavana Gudi temple on the last Monday of the Karthik masa but also put them up for sale in colourfully decorated shops on the bull temple road. Apart from the hundered of stalls of different varieties of groundnuts put up for sale, also stalls as in a typical fair,
selling various items, from flowers to jewellery, food items and fruits, tattoos and artefacts are also set up along the Bull Temple Road which attracts huge crowds (more than half a million people). Cultural events are also held as part of the Parishe. Tharavari or varieties of groundnut sold are two-seeded, three seeded , and single seeded, and also many types such as Badami, Gadag, and Samrat in raosted and boiled state.
- Narasipur Char
