16-Dec-2007
Shravanabelagola, Belur and Halebid in Hassan district, Karnataka

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One more Excellent day, I have visited to Shravanabelagola, Belur and Halebid in Hassan district(196 km from Bangalore), Karnataka. This time I went thorough Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (http://kstdc.nic.in) bus. Its one day package and 660 rupees ticket in Volvo A/C bus. I have started morning 7.AM and came back at 9.30PM. There is no planning required for this type of the trip, you can get the ticket in any KSTDC counter, even you can go in the same day and get the ticket also. All this buses operated from Badami House(Boarding), Corporation Circle,  Banglaore. Its really cheap and worth. Even you go with your family or Friends or Team, its very cheap and safe trip. They have 25 packages within and nearby Karnataka. You can refer this site also for more information http://www.karnatakatourism.org

Let me explain the places, which I visited in a day.

Hassan district situated in 196 km from Bangalore. The hoysala dynasty ruled the southern part of Karnataka from the 11th to 14th century, each being a masterpiece of sculpture mainly based on chalukyan style.

Shravanabelagola: Shravanabelagola is a holy place for Jains. A jain centre famous for monolith statue of Gomateshwara, 17 meters height, carved out of a single stone, Know as Bahubali. Its world tallest monolith statue. The town is located in the midst of two hills. There is a tank in the midst of this town called “Belagola” and the town is called by the same name.

The Vindhyagiri: The hill is about 470 feet above the ground. and is one solid rock and about 500 steps have been cutout in the rock. There is the Brahmadevaru temple atop the hill. Besides there are the Chowwisa Thirthankara Basadi, Chennana Basadi, Odegal Basadi, Tyagada Brahmadevaru Kambha, Akhanda Bagilu and Gullakayajji. The most important monument is the image of Sri Gomateshwara.

Belur: Belur(222 kms from Bangalore and 38 kms from Hassan) originally the capital of the Hoysala kings. The main attaraction of the place is the Keshava Temple built by Vishnuvardhana. It is the only Hoysala temple still in active worship. First they build this temple prototype & it took 20 years to complete. The same prototype was made it in bigger size with all the sculptures & it took 103 years complete. This temple contains 48 pillars and the specialty is, every pillar having unique design. This temple was filled by sculptures like elephants, about war, dance, art, epics, etc. we will take several days to understand every sculptures. Its star shape temple & it contain 32 corners.

Belur Temple Prototype(It took 20 years to do thes prototype):

Halebid: This place is 15km from Belur, know as Dwarasamudra. It was once the seat of Hoysala Empire. Halebid having two temple under the single platform. So its called Double temple also. Hoysaleshwara and Shanteswara both dedicated to Shiva. Shiva is the main god for this temple. Generally hoysala architecture not followed Square shape, they are using Star shape. It means you will find 64 corners in this temple & 108 pillars. Reason is they can accommodate more sculptures outside and inside the temple. We can see beautiful and bigger two nandi in this temple.
If we go around the temple in three stage we can see the Durbar of Lord Shiva, the childhood plays of Bala Krishna, the fight between Karna and Arjuna the lifting of Govardhanagiri by Krishna Gajendramoksha on the western side and the shooting of Matsya Yantra. The story of Krishna and Arjuna can also be seen. The monkey army giving the ornaments to Sri Rama Chakra Vyuha Kote; Krishna and Arjuna getting down from the chariot and taking bath in the pond on hearing the death news of Abhimanyu. The demon King Ravana is lifting Kailasa Parvatha; these are all the important figures.

IMPORTANT: We can see the Hoysal architecture temples only in Belur, Halebid & Somanathapura in Karnataka. One of the Guide said, same architecture used in one of the temple in Rajasthan, But they used marbles to build. Its really excellent architecture to see. We won’t find this type of the architecture any ware in the world. lets plan for a day.

-Udhaya Kumar,V email udhaya@udhaya.com