From the Ramayana to a living shrine.
Almost ages of memory ring this hill — kings and seers, ruin and rediscovery, and finally the slow return of daily worship.
- Treta Yuga
Sita opens the Yenne Kanija
During their exile, Sita and Rama come to Ambajidurga to worship Ambojeshwara. With no oil for the lamp, Mother Sita touches the rock and opens a 9 ft well that yields oil for the worship.
- After Dwapara
Oil becomes water
As yugas turn and adharma rises, the oil ceases. In its place the well flows with sweet water — through every season, on top of a 3,499 ft granite hill — and is believed to heal long illnesses.
- Vijayanagara era → 1700s
Palayagara fortress
Ambajidurga is held by the Avati Nad Prabhu, the Marathas, and Haidar–Tipu in turn. Ambaji Rao of the Chintamani Rao dynasty builds the three-ring fort; the hill takes his name. Ambajidurga remains a taluk headquarters until 1873.
- 1791
The fort falls
After Tipu’s defeat, the Karnatic forces destroy the fort. The Palayagaras lose their power, and the hill — with its temples — slowly slips into neglect. The Veeranjaneya shrine on the slope is swallowed by forest.
- ≈ 1714 – 2014
Three centuries of silence
For nearly 300 years the Veeranjaneya temple stands without a single puja, abhisheka or naivedya — overgrown with trees, bushes and vines. Through it all the idol of Sri Dustasamhara Veeranjaneya Swamy is not harmed in any way.
- 2014
The dream of Sri Narayana Swamy
A farmer of Kavaluganahalli — the village whose name remembers the Palayagara guards — sees Anjaneya Swamy in a dream, in his Dustasamhara form, warning that treasure-hunters are about to break the Ambojeshwara temple and the Yenne Kanija. He climbs the hill with friends, drives away the trespassers, and searches out the lost Veeranjaneya temple. Standing before the drained well in the noon sun, he vows that if the spring flows again in a week, a road will be built and the temple renovated. The next week the well is overflowing.
- 2014 onwards
Ambojeshwara Development Society
Sri Narayana Swamy sells his land, gathers donors and forms the Ambojeshwara Development Society. A road is cut so cars can climb the hill; the Veeranjaneya temple is restored and extended; an Anna Dasoha kotadi is opened beside it for daily meals. A goshala grows around the temple.
- 14 November 2025
Pratishtha of Goddess Durga
As foretold by Sri Kaivara Yoga Narayana Yathindra Tataiah in his Kalagyana, with daily worship established on the hill, Goddess Durga is installed in her new sannidhi.