Lakkundi is a small town with many places to visit, so I reversed the entire itinerary for the day. We decided to start from Gadag Taluka towards Naregal for a day trip. Car hire with Driver charge was Rs. 1900 package for the day with additional Rs. 10/km and Rs.100/hour. We called the car at 08:30 AM.

We had our breakfast in the Restaurant attached to the Hotel itself. By 08:45 am, we were on the way to Naregal, here the driver took the wrong road, wasted almost 15 mins, turned around and took the road towards Ron Taluka, Naregal lies on the way.

We reached Naregal in 45 minutes, locating the Padmabbarasi Temple or Narayana Temple was itself, a very difficult task. There is no location marked on Google, also locals were unaware of the biggest Rashtrakuta temple, located in their midst.

We had to ask for Narayana Temple, which they were guiding us back to the Gadag Veernarayana Temple. We had to explain them that it is an ancient temple, after hopping over from one local to another, one of the local guided us to the ancient temple, which seemed quite small from outside and locals have built their house closer to this temple almost eclipsing it.

One of the amazing temples lying in ruins, only the garbagriha and the adjoining Mandapa is in good shape. This is where I realised I left the battery for my Nikon DSLR in the Hotel itself. The day was filled with interesting sites to visit, I had to reply on my Mobile and DJI Pocket for Photos 😦 .

The temple was closed, the driver called for the keys from the local person, thankfully, the local person opened the temple. This temple was built during the reign of Krishna III, by the Queen Padmabbarasi of Ganga Permadi Bhutayya in 950 AD.

This is a trikuta temple with three garbagrihas, the adjacent garbagriha was long and had rectangular pedestals with 24 holes indicating, that they were meant for 24 Tirthankara sculptures. The other garbagriha was closed.

We were happy that atleast we could visit this temple after coming all the way from Gadag Taluka. I hope ASI folks will pay attention to this deteriorating biggest temple of Rashtrakuta era in the State of Karnataka. I forgot to mark the location in google, after sitting in the car. I took the screenshot, hoping it will help future travelers.

After spending 15 minutes here, by 9:45 am, we were on the way to Kuknoor to see the Mahamaya & Navalingeshwara Temples.