The place is where ravanan handed over the athmalingam to lord vinayagar while he was returning to his palace from himalayas. Legend goes as the devastating were worried upon knowing that ravanan has got the athmalingam from Lord shiva and they requested lord vinayagar to help them as he may gain more power. Lord vinayagar promised to solve the issue. While all were wondering what to do, ravanan landed here to do santhyavanthanam as its sunset time. To make use the opportunity vinayagar went near him as a small young boy pretending to be a casual by goer. On seeing the boy, ravanan requested the boy to hold the athmalingam in his hands till he returned back after finishing the santhyapujai,as placing it down is not possible as it will get installed in the place where it's placed and the boy told him that its too heavy for him to hold and so he has return upon his call otherwise he will place it down, but tricked ravanan by pretending to call him thrice and placed the lingam here. Ravanan ran back after his pujai to see the athmalingam placed down and tried to pull out but went vain and exclaimed hay maha bala. ,meaning of Lord you are so strong that I cannot pull out. And thus the temple here. The main deity is the athmalingam of Lord shiva worshipped as mahabaleswarar.

During the second week of February we visited Muradeshwar, Gokarna etc. We hired a taxi from Muradeshwar to Gokarna. The taxi driver took us to an Eco beach, three other temples (two of which are part of the Atma lingam) and to the Gokarna beach. The Gokarna temple opens only at 5.30pm and there was a long queue to get in. The temple needs to be kept in better condition. One can buy good spices from here and some bargaining can be done.

Visited the temple during Mid April. Feels divine as we enter the sanctum. The Atmalinga (broken) is enclosed, we are allowed to touch this during mornings. I tried, but could not get the actual feel, probably we the people would have dumped other offerings.