Bhubaneshwar is often called the city of temples . It is impossible to know exactly how many temples there are, but it has been estimated that there might be over 700 temples in the city. This number, while impressive, is just a fraction of the original number, which, sometime in the 13 th century, would have been about 7000. Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the Hindu temples of Bhubaneshwar , where 93 temples are listed. All these are ancient temples, built between the 7 th and 13 th centuries CE. Bhubaneshwar was once known as Ekamra Kshetra , the sacred mango grove. We know this name from an inscription at the Ananta Vasudeva temple, which mentions the name of the place, and the main temple (that we now know as the Lingaraja temple) in the mango grove. Ananta Vasudeva Temple, with a sculpture of Trivikrama in the niche It is extremely interesting to note that the Ananta Vasudeva temple is the only temple to Lord Vishnu in this city. Varaha, Ananta Vasudeva Temple Located v...
We happened to see this vehicle, probably one of the new ones belonging to the police or the army. It drew all eyes towards it, and cameras and mobiles were pulled out, and the tourists went click....click....click! I wondered if it would be all right to take pics, considering that these belong to our state security forces, but there were plenty of policemen around, and none of them seemed to care about the photography, so I decided to go for it too! It looks more like a tank than a van, right? I saw a couple more such vehicles at Mantralaya later, but did not dare take pics there!!!!!