9th August 2009
When people are asked about the list of Hoysala Temples, majority of them would remember only Belur and Helebid. A few might mention about couple of other Temples. But there are more than 100 Temples which were built during Hoysala regime. While many of these lesser known Temples are already under ruins, some of them have been restored by ASI and other organizations.
KR Pet has lot of Hoysala temples nearby. One such Temple I visited with my family was Brahmeshwara Temple at Kikkeri.
Kikkeri is a small town about 15 km from Chennaraya Patna on Mysore-Chennaraya Patna highway. Asked few locals and got the direction to the Temple. We passed through some narrow lanes to reach a big lake. The Temple is next to the lake. We found that the Temple was locked. Few people near the Temple guided me to the house of the priest whose house was a furlong away. I went to the house to find that the person had gone out. The woman in the house gave me the mobile number of the priest. The priest was on line and he arrived at the Temple few minutes later.
This Temple was built during 12th century by local chieftain Chennamma Nayaki. She wanted to build a Temple for Lord Brahma but was advised against by scholars. The reason was that Brahma was not worshipped anywhere. She had a dream where Lord Ishwara asked her to construct a Temple for him. Hence the name of the Temple was “Brahmeshwara”.
Apparently the Temple was not fully completed. The priest showed me several places where the sculptures and carvings were half completed. The reason is not known. A possibility can be some local disturbance during that time or an enemy attack.
One of the highlight of the Temple is the shilabalikas. There are several of them in the Temple.
some of the snake idols are kept along a line near the Temple.
Though the Temple has some nice piece of art, I must say that it is very much neglected. The compound wall is being shared by few houses and the wall has fallen in few places.
ರಾಜೇಶ್ ನಾಯ್ಕ
whew! what a little beauty! Read a kannada article on this temple in tourism website. Nice to see more photos here. 3rd photo gives lovely shot of the temple.
dguide
Well dear, i passed this town of kikkeri to visit Govindahalli which is also a beautiful hoysala temple, well maintained. Next we proceeded to Shravanbelagola and from their to Basadahalli. Nice info next time i will keep this destination in Mind. Check my travelouge for exhaustive coverage on Hoysalas.
rocksea
That is a beautiful temple. The sculptures are wonderful. Thanks for the introduction, keep posting 'em!
The 4th picture, is that of Brahma? The nagas look beautiful.
Aravind GJ
Rajesh,
Thanks.
dguide,
Thanks for your comments… A post on Govindanahalli is waiting to get posted!!
Saw your blog… really good… with loads of information!!!!
rocksea,
I am not very sure whether it is of Brahma.
Sankara Subramanian C
Very nice…I have passed that route so many times, but never even knew that such a beautiful temple existed.
Thanks for sharing the information and photos! Very well written and informative…
Sankara
http://sankaracs.blogspot.com
Aravind GJ
Sankara,
Thanks for your comments.
I have now got one more travel blog to view!!
Sankara Subramanian C
🙂 Sure! Please go through my travel blog when you find time. Feedback coming from an experience traveler will do me a lot of good 🙂
Sankara
http://sankaracs.blogspot.com
naive sapiens
“When people are asked about the list of Hoysala Temples, majority of them would remember only Belur and Helebid.” Very true! Some might mention Somnathapura Kesava temple also. Great you are blogging about the lesser known ones. I personally feel that these monuments deserve much more from us. Recently started with my discovery of Karnataka (as I would like to call it), I am following your blog.
http://letterwoods.blogspot.com/2009/09/kesava-temple-of-somnathapura.html
Aravind GJ
naive sapiens,
Thanks for visiting and commenting in my blog.
Will look at your blog!!