Murudeshwar Temple and World’s second highest Lord Shiva statue – Murudeshwar, Bhatkal.

Murudeshwar is a town in Bhatkal Taluk of Uttara Kannada district in the state of Karnataka, India. 160 km north of the Mangalore International Airport. The town lies on the coast of the Arabian Sea and is also famous for the Murudeshwar Temple and the world’s second-tallest Shiva statue, The Murudeshwar beach has two beautiful temples with majestic statues, Murudeshwar Temple that has a 20-storey high Gopura guarded by two life-size concrete elephants at the steps leading inside the temple.

A huge towering statue of Lord Shiva, visible from great distances, is present in the temple complex. It is the second highest statue of Lord Shiva in the world. The statue is 123 feet (37 m) in height and took about two years to build. The statue was built by Shivamogga’s Kashinath and several other sculptors, financed by businessman and philanthropist R.N. Shetty, at a cost of approximately 50 million Rs. The idol is designed such that it gets the sunlight directly and thus appears sparkling.Originally, the statue had four arms and was adorned in gold paint. However, large wind gusts blew one arm off, and rain dissolved the paint.