Musafir

The Royal entrance of the Hoysaleswara Temple (shown in the picture below) faces South with stone pathway in front of it. In The entrance is guarded by Nandi and Bhrungi and each stand 9 feet in height. The Indian Tourism Department acclaim the Hoysaleswara Temple as the Jewellery Box of South India. Each statue is so extensively carved with beautiful jewellery designs with 300 individual pieces on each statue. Hindu rituals and customs, Lord Ganesha is worshipped before all others. Even here you will find a beautifully carved sculpture on one side of the stone pathway. The Royal emblem of the Hoysalas stand on the other side facing the Ganesha idol.

Near the Ganesha statue, there is one interesting object. This is the rare Garuda Sthamba (Garuda pillar). These are different from hero stones. Garudas were elite bodyguards of the kings and queens. They moved and lived with the royal family and their only purpose was to protect their master. Upon the death of their master, they committed suicide. The rare pillar on the south side depicts heroes brandishing knives and cutting their own heads. The inscription honours Kuruva Lakshma, a bodyguard of Veera Ballala II. A devoted officer, he took his life and that of his wife and other bodyguards after the death of his master. This event is narrated in an old Kannada inscription on the pillar.

Before we talk about various sculptures, lets see the temple as a whole. In this temple, the Hoysala architects have broken from the tradition of using five friezes as the base of the temple, below the large wall sculptures and the window screens. The outer walls have two eaves that run around the temple. The top eaves is at the roof of the temple and the second about a meter below. In between there are decorated miniature pillars. Below the lower eaves are the wall sculptures and eight friezes. This type of relief work is called horizontal treatment. Each of the eight friezes carries an array of decoration.

Going from the bottom where the temple wall meets the platform, the lowest frieze depicts charging elephants which symbolise strength and stability, above which, in order, are friezes with lions which symbolise courage, floral scrolls as decoration, horses for speed, another band of floral scrolls, depiction of Hindu epics, makara (imaginary animal) and finally a frieze with hansas (swans). No two animals are alike in a total frieze span of over 200 m. It is interesting to know that there are 1248 statues of elephants in the lower frieze and not two are alike. In the epic frieze, the epics are not continuous as they are mixed with other depictions. Above the swans there are miniature sculptures in various dance forms. Above it, is a continuous frieze of the Kshetra Palaka (Guardians of the Temple). The final is a row of amorous couples depicting the various aspects of the Kamasutra. After the construction of this temple, Hoysala architects used this new kind of horizontal treatment only 50 years later, making it a standard style, but with six friezes.

We also need to talk about the Nandi sculptures here as we move on. Nandi, as we know is the carrier of Lord Siva and always positioned in front of any Siva Shrine. Here is no exception. These two monolithic Nandi statues are recognized as among the 7 largest in India. The others in order of their size are Lepakshi in Andhra Pradesh, Brihadishwara Temple in Tanjore, on The Chamundi Hill in Mysore, Basavannagudi (Bull Temple) in Bangalore and in Rameshwaram where the one at Lepakshi is the largest. The statues here are very life like and exceptionally carved with decorative items. In fact, when you consider the decorative carvings, these two statues occupy the first position.

Believe it or not, this temple has over 20,000 sculptures, small or big. Now we will talk about some interesting sculptures. There is the Lord Ganesha in a dancing posture (Natya Ganesha) on his carrier, the Rat. The artist’s imagination has no bounds here. Unable to bear the weight of Ganesha on it, the rat’s mouth is option with exhaustion.

One interesting and a nice artist imagination is the sculpture of the story Gajasura Mardhana (Siva slaying the demon king Gajasura). Here Lord Siva is shown dancing within the elephant’s stomach. The artist depicted the legs of the elephant on the top and the head in the bottom and Lord Siva between. Even though this is in line with mythological accounts, this imaginative carving is very rare and unique to the Hoysala architecture.

There is one detailed sculpture showing Lord Krishna lifting the Govardhana mountain and the villagers and a cow herd taking shelter under it. If you observe carefully, there is a banana tree to the top right with a bunch of bananas. There is another tree to the right where a monkey is shown climbing. There are peacocks, lizards and snakes shown among the trees on the mountain. There is one piece of sculpture which is out of place on this. On the left, you will find three people sharing 4 legs. The artist has sculpted the men so symmetrically that even when you observe carefully, one cannot find any faults and the positions of the men are in perfect alignment of the legs.

The stories of the various incarnations of Vishnu are depicted in detail like Vishnu in the Varaha form killing the demon Hiranyaksha or the Narasimha form killing the demon Hiranyakasipa. It will take at least 3 days to fully look at each sculpture and relate them to Hindu mythology to admire the beauty. I anyway did not have the time to see all of them. However, we will see some more with detailed accounts in the next post.

Continued from the previous post…

There are several inscriptions here. Some date during the Hoysala reign and some others written during later rulers who developed the temple premises E.g., the gopura of the temple, constructed during the Vijayanagara period. There are 17th century inscriptions on the walls about the donors, written in Kannada. Lets go back to the sculptures.

There is this idol of of a lady dancing. You can see the musicians playing at her feet. It is said that this idol is in so amazing symmetry that if a water drops from the tip of the finger on top, it drops through tip of her left hand, tip of her left breast, tip of her left hand finger and then finally tip of her left toe before touching the ground.

I have written only about some of the sculptures but there are many others with a story and interpretation of its own. There are other things to know and see in this temple complex. The Kalyani tank is situated in the north east corner of the complex. It was earlier called as Vasudeva Tirtha according to an inscription during Veera Ballala - II dated 1175 A.D. There are two elephants at the entrance and pavilions to the north and south of it. It is 46 feet deep and has receding steps from all the four sides.

There is this victory pillar which is 35 feet in height that was placed in the 14th century. It is monolithic with a square shaped base. It somehow stands only on three corners and you can clearly see a gap from the base. While placing this pillar, they must have properly calculated the wind velocity and the angle in which it had to be placed so that the centre of gravity falls on the base. There is the Kappe Chennigaraya Temple which is closed. It contains a damaged statue of Chennakesava. I talked about the legend that Jakkana found a frog inside this statue and he cut his hand in the first post.

To the south west of the Kesava Temple, is the temple of Saumyanayaki. It has a garbhagriha surmounted by a tower. According to an inscription, the original tower which was damaged was got repaired in 1387 by Muddappa a minister in the court of the Vijayanagara King Harihara II and a metal kalasa was fixed on it. The front portion of this temple was a later addition by the Dalavayi family of Kalale.

The Veera Narayana Temple to the west of the Kesava Temple is a small and compact structure with the outer wall containing beautiful sculptures of Vaishnava and Saiva faith. It consists of a Garbhagriha, a Sukhanasi and a Navaranga. The 59 large images on the outer wall include Vishnu, Siva, Bramha, Parvati etc. This temple is raised on an elevated basement and is contemporary to the Chennakesava Temple.

The temple of the Goddess Andal situated to the north west of the Kesava Temple is also called as the Ranganayaki Temple. The basement has friezes of elephants, scroll work and puranic scenes. It has the appearance having built with the materials belonging to some ruined Hoysala Temple. It is known for the row of 31 sculpture on its outer wall. The canopies on these images which differ from one another show true workmanship. Two of the images on the south wall have the names of sculptures Bechama and Madhuvanna who carved them.

Whatever i wrote is just a glimpse of this marvellous piece or art. Visit this temple at least once in your lifetime. With that said, i continue on my journey to my next step a temple which is bigger than the Chennakesava Temple and more intricately carved, the Hoysaleswara Temple in Halebidu.

As i enter inside the temple, all i see is a dark room with rows of pillars. These pillars are extraordinarily carved with miniature designs. There are 48 pillars inside the temple and each is unique it its design, each of the intricately carved. The four central pillars are a marvel. These four pillars bear madanikas(Celestial damsels) and there are 42 of them, 4 inside the hall and the rest outside all round the main shrine. They are depicted in various forms, such as, dancers, musicians and drummers and are rarely erotic in nature.

The temple is divided into three, a garbhagriha (sanctum), the vestibule and the rangamantapa. The sanctum is guarded by the dwarapalakas of Lord Vishnu, Jaya and Vijaya and they are heavily decorated with ornaments. Above the entrance to the sanctum, is the makaratorana. Makara, as we know is a mythical creature having legs of a Lion, body like a boar, ears of a cow, eyes of a monkey, mouth of a crocodile,  elephant’s trunk and with feathers like a peacock. This animal is the vehicle of the rain god Varuna.

We talked about the madanika forms on the pillars in here. They are so intricately carved that a stone pendant which on one figure can be moved even though its made up of a single stone. Also there is a one figure which wear bangles that can be moved. Even here the entire structure is a monolith. Such was the mastery of the sculptors of that time. The name of the architects is found on pillars and pedestals of these madanika figures.

There is one unique pillar on the ceiling here and the entire thing is carved like an interlocking system. There is a 3 feet protrusion from the ceiling and the bottom of it is carved in the form of Narasimha, the fifth incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Also there is a lotus petal which symbolizes Brahma. This protrusion is in the form of an inverted Siva Linga and this ceiling marks the culmination of the three supreme powers in the form of Bhuvaneshwari. This form of a ceiling is found only in three places in India, the other two being the temple in Somnathpur and the Dilwara Temple in Mount Abu Rajasthan.

I was talking about the pillars inside. Each pillar is entirely unique in its design and is made of five sections an weighs around 4000 - 5000 kilograms. The designs on these pillars inspire the bangle designs as well as sarees. There are two important pillars. Lets talk about the Mohini first. Mohini is the female form of Lord Vishnu. The hands of the sculpture was broken during the siege in the 14th century. The pillar and the the sculpture are together monolith and its amazing to see that a small twig passes through the carved crown. This sculpture also talks about the perfect proportion of the human body and the the legend that a women whose second finger of the toe is bigger is more dominating.

The second pillar is the Narasimha which was carved in such a way that it rotates on its base. It uses the stone ball bearing system. The extraordinary feature of this pillar is that whatever carvings that we find inside and outside of the temple can be found on this pillar. So this is like a miniature of art. There is the artists signature on this pillar too. What i have observed in other temples in parts of India reflects here. A little part of the pillar is left untouched. This is a typical artist signature which challenges others to carve something like him in the same small place. This pillar not only has length and breadth but also depth. That is the best thing about this. Smallest designs are shown here like a betel nut sized elephant, bull and a small idol of Lord Ganesha.

I spent around 15 minutes inside the temple exploring everything and then move out to cover the outer structures.