Kadambai 2 London: Hoysaleswara Temple

Halebidu means an old settlement. It is located near the Dwarasamudra lake constructed by the king Druva Nirupama of Rashtrakuta dynasty. Its said that the temple took more than 100 years to build and is still incomplete. Malik Kafur in his invasion of South India destroyed a lot of temples and one of the temples which met his wrath is this temple.

This temple holds two sanctums, Hoysaleswara and Shantaleshwara. As per the inscriptions found at Ghattadahalli, a village nearby which reads "During 1211 A.D. king Vishnuvardhana's minister, a military chief Sri Kethamalla built the Hoysaleshwara temple in honor of his king Vishnuvardhana and the Shantaleshwara temple in honor of the queen Shantaladevi."

Like all other Hoysala temples, this temple is also constructed on a star-shaped platform which is about 4 feet tall. The temple has four entrances of which two main doorways are in the east, and the other two doorways are situated in north and south directions. Two huge bulls are installed facing the main deities as is common in any Shiva temple. The Nandi idol in front of Hoysaleshwara temple is about 9 feet tall and is a feet taller than the Nandi in front of the Shantaleshwara temple. It's a way to show the superiority of the King over the Queen. No equality those days huh.

There is a common saying around these places. View the Belur temple from inside and the Hoysaleswara temple from the outside. The outer walls have multiple lines of arts. There are lines with elephants, mythical animals, flowers, and the stories of the great Indian epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

The temple has scenes of Krishna lifting and holding the Govardhana hill on his little finger, the story of Prahlada, war between Vali and Sugriva, Abhimanyu in Chakravyuha, Bhima killing the elephants, soldiers wearing helmet, soldiers riding on horses wearing boots, churning of sea by gods and demons, arjuna is setting his arrow towards the eye of a fish, Gajasura mardana, shiva & parvati on nandi, Lord vishnu in the form of Varahamurthy has given a severe blow to Demon Hiranyaksha which makes his eye ball to come out of its place, a lady in Bharatanatya pose.

Statues are identified with the vehicles and weapons. There are a lot of minute details depicted in these statues. For instance, the view of the backside of the tiger in the mountain lifted by Krishna. Its a well thought out design. The hairstyles of the ladies, the high heels they have used all depict the dressing style available at that part of the time.

There are few sex scenes also depicted as statues. The guide was stressing the point again and again that the temple was not only a place of worship, it was a place for education which included sex education also. It was a place of art and education along with worship.

The whole temple is a masterpiece. Me being a cynic I don't feel wow at a lot of stuff. But this temple is one among the wow factor I have ever witnessed in my life.

It's sad to see broken sculptures and scribblings on the wall. I seriously felt like, I would go slap the guy if I find anyone scribbling on these masterpieces. It is again a sad story that most of the dancing girl statues from the temples are stolen and is now available in some random museums in the UK. Shame on you guys. Forget the past at least return them back to us now. We can't put them back. The temple will never come back to its past glory but at least we will know how rich our art and innovation was before the British ruled us.