Male Mahadeshwara Hills, or MM Hills, in Karnataka, southern India. These are not ordinary hills. They are deep forests, old mountains, wildlife, small villages, sacred paths and centuries of stories carried from one generation to another.
The hills are named after Male Mahadeshwara Swamy, a beloved saint who is worshipped as an embodiment of Lord Shiva. For the people of this region, he is not simply a god inside a temple. His presence belongs to the hills, the forests, the animals, the people and the stories of the land. His life is remembered through songs, folklore and oral traditions that have travelled across generations.
Not far from this cultural world is another figure who has always fascinated me—Siddappaji.
Siddappaji is remembered as a folk saint and an unconventional spiritual figure connected with the old Manteswamy tradition of southern Karnataka. His story belongs to a world that did not always follow the rules of formal and orthodox religion. It belonged to ordinary people, craftsmen, farmers, wandering singers and communities whose stories were often carried by memory rather than written in books.
this is where bhangi—ganja—enters the story.
In the folk memory surrounding Siddappaji, Ganja was not a strange or foreign thing. It was part of the world around wandering ascetics and folk spirituality. Traditional stories describe Siddappaji encountering ascetics smoking bhangi and asking them to share it with him. The old Siddappaji tradition and festivals also preserve memories of bhangi(Ganja) as part of their cultural and ritual world.
Of course, these stories come to us through folklore and oral tradition, so I do not want to turn legend into modern historical fact. But the connection is real in the cultural memory of our people: Siddappaji, the folk saints, the forests,Ganja , rebellion against rigid ideas of purity, and a more free and unconventional way of looking at spirituality.
That is why I thought of you.
You have come from another part of the world and created a space around this same ancient plant. And I find something beautiful in the idea that a plant which has travelled through so many cultures can also connect your story with an old and almost forgotten world in the forests of Karnataka.
MM Hills is not just a temple—it is an ancient forest landscape with a powerful living culture of saints, tribal and rural communities, folk traditions and Shaiva spirituality.
There is another fascinating figure from the folk-spiritual history of southern Karnataka: Siddappaji, associated with the Manteswamy folk tradition. Siddappaji is remembered as an unconventional saint and folk hero whose tradition challenged many ideas of religious and social orthodoxy. His stories have survived through generations of oral storytelling and folk songs.
One particularly interesting aspect of Siddappaji’s tradition is its connection with bhangi or ganja. In local folk memory and religious traditions surrounding Siddappaji, bhangi was accepted and even treated as part of the spiritual and cultural world around him. Traditional accounts of the Siddappaji Jatre at Chikkallur describe offerings and communal traditions involving bhangi, liquor and meat—practices that reflected a folk tradition very different from orthodox ideas of religious “purity.”
According to Siddappaji folk tradition, bhangi/ganja is closely associated with his religious world, stories and festival culture. Oral stories even depict Siddappaji asking for bhangi from ascetics who were smoking it.
The seeds I have - They carry a story.
A story of forests and hills.
Of Male Mahadeshwara Swamy.
Of Siddappaji and the old folk traditions.
Of wandering saints and singers.
Of Ganja/Bhangi, freedom and rebellion against rigid rules.