Hosaholalu

This wonderful place was my father’s discovery. A temple in a small village called Hosaholalu. I did not have great expectations as we left home that morning. I enjoyed the drive anyway and hoped to get some good pictures of the green fields on our way.

After driving for a little more than an hour, we reached this village and parked the car in front of the temple.
One look at the façade of the temple and I remarked that I was disappointed.


We entered the temple and lo! There was no electricity!

But in that dark, illuminated occasionally by beams of sunlight here and there and lamps burning inside the sanctum, what revealed to us was the magnificent story of another era.



Stone, stone and stone all around … beaten, chiseled, engraved, carved and polished by relentless men of a bygone past until they had taken shape of the beauty that the sculptor had conceived.

We were in a temple built in the Hoysala architecture style! It was a protected monument.

I had to make an effort to turn my attention away from the pillars, statues and intricate carvings around me to the deities in the sanctum, as the hymns were recited by the priest, pooja performed and blessings given.
We stepped outside, ate the prasada, hoped the electric supply would be restored and proceeded to examine the exterior of the temple.

And what we found was absolutely splendid! Marvellous! Let the pictures speak.




Before you proceed, let me share with you what I found in Wikipedia about this place. I should have researched the place before visiting it … I would have appreciated it much more…

"The Lakshminarayana Temple located in Hosaholalu, a small town in Mandya district of Karnataka, India was built by king Vira Someshwara of the Hoysala Empire in 1250 CE. The date of the temple has been ascertained by the style of the sculptures and architecture and compares closely with the contemporeneous Hoysala architecture at Javagalu, Nuggehalli, Somanathapura etc. The town of Hosaholalu is about 60 kilometres (37 mi) from Hassan and 45 kilometres (28 mi) from the heritage city Mysore, the cultural capital of Karnataka state."

I am trying to compete with the Shilabalikas… :)

We rested for sometime in the cool shade of the temple...and ate watermelon






And then as luck would have it, the lights went on…and we returned to the inside of the temple.

There were three deities in three sanctums; Venugopala (Krishna), Narasimha and Lakshminarayana.

And to my utter disbelief (and good fortune), photography was officially permitted.

We drove back to Mysore.
I went through all the pictures that I had taken over and over as we had lunch at Dasaprakash paradise.