Kabbinale, a village at the foot of the Western Ghats (Sahyadri) Agumbe range, is situated in Karkala taluk of the Udupi district of Karnataka state, India. In the Kannada language, kabbinale means "sugarcane crushing place". This small village is around 50 km from UdupiTown, and the nearest town is Hebri, which is around 20 km from Kabbinale . The area is covered by thick forests and populated by wild animals. The scene of ghats is worth seeing[citation needed] during monsoon season. There is only one way to enter the village, as further you go its a dead-end, the road enters the forests and the ghats. The last settlement, called Kuchur, is around 1500 feet above sea level. It can be reached from Hebri via Mudraadi or Bachappu or Ajekar via Munniyal.Kabbinale,village has been included into the Kuduremukha National Park Project.
Kabbinale,village is one of the most ideal place, location for Breeding/reproduction, and best habitat for King Cobra.
[edit] Mythology
This village has been inhabited by people for past thousands of years. Traces of stone age culture dating back to at least 6000 years are visible around the village.
Kabbinale had a lot of Jain settlers in the initial times, that is a few thousand years back, but the latest settlers (a few hundred years back) are Sthanika Brahmins, families who migrated from a place called Sulkod or Suligod, a place close to Kollur.
Few families migrated here, as they had a major family feud with other parts of their families.
Today, the maximum number of population and families are Stanika Brahmins. One can find small number of Shivalli Brahmins, Bunts, and Billavas as all of the families settled here.
But it can be easily told that this village belongs to the Sthanika Brahmins families, who were the early settlers, as now the migrated family have grown to more than 90 individual houses/families.
Kabbinale Village is one of the populated settlements of Sthanika Brahmins families. All these families have a common Surname HEBBAR.
The main occupation of the Hebbars are agriculture, they grow a lot of cash crops like betel nut, vanilla, coconut, coco & spices of various kinds, cardamom, black pepper, clove, ginger, etc. Kabbinale village is one of the highest contributors of milk to Manipal KMF Dairy.
The Hebbars are very intelligent, hardworking, smart and brave people. As the life in Kabbinale is not so easy, as it rains for almost 5-6 months, it receives a very heavy downpour, as it is in the foothills of Agumbe Ghat. There are a lot of wild animals in this region, and the village is infested with leeches, poisonous snakes, and maneaters. Most of the families have a licensed gun for self protection.
There are two temples in Kabbinale; these temples are called mattas. Both these temple deities have a unique story behind them.
Kellaa Matta The older of the two temples is called Kellaa Matta, as it is situatied in a lower altitude, and in Kannada the word 'kella' means down or below. Lord Sri Gopalkrishna is the deity of this temple. The Uniqueness of the Deity is as follows:
The story goes like this, Few hundred years back, Kabbinale Village, didn't have any temple, and the village elders thought of building a temple for Lord Krishna. Now as the families had migrated from a place called Sulkod or Suligod near Kollur, after some family feud, so the male members, of the migrated families had a plan, they raided their old village temple at Sulikod/Suligod, and brought the same Idol of Lord Sri Gopalkrishna to Kabbinale, in the night and when the villagers of Sulkod/Suligod, came to know of this it was already morning.
They came to Kabbinale in search of the Idol, there was a big fight among each other, but the people of Sulkod/Suligod, could never find the idol, and the settelers of Kabbinale always maintained that they had not stolen the idol. The Idol was kept hidden inside a Pond, as nobody could find it.
The idol remained there for several years, and then it was removed from the pond and installed in the temple. During all this tussel for the Idol, the Flute of the Idol broke, therefore today also one can find a silver flute in the Black Granite Idol, of Lord Sri Gopalkrishna.
Mella Matta This second temple is in a bit higger altitude so its called as Mella Matta, in kannada mela means up or higher altitude, here the main deity is Lord Sri Laxmi Narayana.This idol of Sri Laxminarayana is one of a UNIQUE IDOL,the uniqueness is that Goddess Laxmi is sitting on the Left leg of Lord Narayana, this kind of Posture of Lord Laxminarayana is very rare.
[edit] Life
Serpantine path leads to several houses, which will be usually in the midst of arecanut garden. As this village was considered very remote, education facilities are minimal. Several elders even today are not well versed with letters. But with difficulties, they learnt to read. Almost all house holds depend on garden produce for livelihood. People are very descent and cordial to new comers. Now a days, most of these people want to leave this picturesquare village due to lack of education, medical facilities and proper convayance. Even though some private buses ply up to half of village, the other half still depend Auto rikshaw or trekking for conveyance and the total length of village is more than seven miles!
But most of the families have their childrens,who have done very well in academics and are based out of Kabbinale,few of them are software professionals,MBA's,and have a very highly placed jobs.
