Somnathpur Chennakesava temple

Somnathpur, a village situated on the banks of Kaveri river is famous for the Chennakesava Temple built during the reigns of Hoysala Empire.  It is on par with the great Hoysala temples of Belur and Halebid in terms of the grandeur, size and intricacy of the carvings. Built in 1258 CE by Somanatha Dandanayaka, a general of the Hoysala King Narasimha III, it miraculously survived the destruction by Delhi sultanates. As per inscriptions, there were few more temples in Somnathpur but all have either disappeared or in ruins.

 

Drive to Somnathpur

It was the first trip with Sankara and his family after the onset of COVID-19. While Sankara and I did some day trips near Bengaluru, it was the first time we took our families. They had not seen the places around Somnathpur, and it was a nice opportunity to visit some of them. We packed food items in order to avoid the crowded and closed spaces like restaurants.

The drive to Somnathpur was uneventful. It was a cloudy day without rains. We crossed the towns of Ramnagar, Chennapatna, Maddur, Malavalli and Bannur to reach Somnathpur village. It was not hard to locate the temple as it is a well-known place. As we parked our vehicle, we were pleasantly happy to see the temple surrounded by large garden. Few vehicles parked in the area indicated that people started travelling out, albeit in small numbers.

At the temple

This temple is maintained by ASI and entry ticket is needed. Since the reopening after lockdown, the tickets need to be booked online. They had put up QR codes on the board helped us to quickly load the site and book tickets. It was very simple. Hazzle free process.

 

The temple is surrounded by the walls on all sides with a main gate. A tall pillar at the entrance of the outer wall looked impressive, but the statue on top of it is missing. As we entered though the main door, we saw a long inscription stone written in old Kannada. These inscriptions are critical to understand to history of the temple and the region.

 

The temple from the entrance of the main gate looking stunning. The three towered temple at the center is built on top a three feet high star shaped platform which is typical of Hoysala Architecture. It looked gorgeous from the outer entrance of the temple.

 

We first circled around the temple on the broad platform. Two statues on either side of the entrance were very attractive. We were sad to see both sculptures in damaged state. We realized that most of the sculptures in the temple were damaged either due to breaking of hands or chipping out the nose. Even though the temple was restored after the destruction by Delhi sultanates, it never regained its original form. The temple was again damaged and looted in 19^th century by British. As per inscriptions, the temple was restored twice, once during Vijayanagar Empire and then by Mysore kings.

 

The outer walls of the temple is one of the most impressive part of the temple. The lower part consists of six bands.

1. Elephants
2. Horses
3. Peacocks, flowers and fruit
4. Mythology frieze with depiction from Ramayana, Bhagavata Purana and Mahabharata
5. Makara, a creature in Hindu mythology
6. Peacocks

 

The middle part of the walls consists of very intricately carved deities, most of them either defaced or damaged. Few notable ones are Durga in Mahishasura Mardini, Saraswati, Narasimha avatar of Vishu and hundreds of other deities.

 

The towers are also intricately carved. It looks like the top of the tower is recently restored.

 

After circling around the temple, we entered into the garbhagruha. It is supported by 16 pillars and the ceilings are again intricately carved. Being a trikuta temple, it has three shrines dedicated to Vishnu in the form of Keshava, Janardhana and Venugopala.

 

We then circled the temple from the base. The temple simply looked beautiful from each angle. During my previous visits, I had not spent so much time appreciating the temple. We did another round of circling on the pillared corridor of the temple. It houses many shrines, but the statues were missing in most of them.

 

After spending a long time in the temple, we came out fully satisfied. It was time to rest on the stone benches below the large tree. It was a beautiful day!

Last points

My last visit to this temple was about 18 years ago. I remembered seeing more people at that time. Due to COVID-19 situation, people are not coming out but there are signs of revival. There were few families from the city, villagers were paying visit and a couple was busy in photo shooting.

Somnathpur is about 130 km from Bengaluru and 35 km from Mysuru and can be easily covered in a day. You could combine nearby places like T Narasipura, Talakadu and Shivanasamudra. If you have more days, then you could cover places like MM Hills or BR Hills.