Banashankari Amma Temple

Banashankari Badami is a temple dedicated to Goddess Banashankari also known as Shakambhari.

An important time to visit the temple is in the month of January during Pushya maasa, where a navrathri is held. This is also the time when the temple gets extremely crowded by people who worship Shakambhari as their household Deity. This is called Banashankari Jathre, which lasts for a month during January and February. In this event a chariot is pulled from the temple gate to another sculpture called padhkatte.

Situated close to Badami in a place called Cholachagudda or cholachagudd, in Bagalkot District of Karnataka. In front of the temple one finds a tank and ruins of the old temple.

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All the priests in the temple are from Cholachagudd. During the Jathre event there will be nearly 30 touring cinema theatres and 10-15 drama companies and sometimes even famous circus. The piligrims can have north Indian dishes like Kadak Jawari Roti, Hesarukalu Pally (subji), curd and gurellu-chatni etc.,for their food. There is a belief that the pond infront of the temple will never dry and it has never dried in the history when all the neighbouring ponds had dried during a drought. one more belief about this pond is that a new born baby will have a good luck in his future if he is taken in a boat made from banana stem across this pond.