I started from Hassan at 6:30 AM. There was a chill in the air. The sky was overcast. While that reduced the chances of capturing the golden rays on a 900 old temple, it meant I could photograph the exteriors through the day without having to worry of the harsh shadows that a sunny day would produce.

The town was just about waking up when we pulled into Hallebid. The first pot of tea was being laid on the just lit kerosene stoves. The roads were being swept with handmade brooms of dried coconut leaves throwing up huge clouds of dust. Sleepy eyed kids threw grains for the chicken.

The temple courtyard was empty. I had beaten the day-trippers to it.  I had an ancient site all to myself. For sometime anyway.

Hoysaleshwar Temple at Hallebid, in the Hassan district of the southern state of Karnataka in India.

In the 11th century, Southern India was in a state of turmoil. The breakaway Western Chalukyas had ruled for a century. The bitter and constant turmoil with the Cholas had severely depleted the state resources. The kingdom was war-fatigued. A tribal chieftain called Nripa Kama , a tough mountain man, distanced himself from the Chalukyas and quietly laid foundation of a dynasty and an empire that would put Karnataka perpetually on the world map. The Hoysala dynasty survived until the 14th century before its was laid to waste by the Mughals . For the first 80 years of the rule, the Hoysala kings stayed under the radar of neighboring kingdoms judiciously building a harmonious kingdom.

Then Vishnuvardhana came into power in 1108 CE.

Vishnuwardhana comprehensively beat the Cholas in Tallakad. In celebration, he started building the Chennakeshava temple in Belur. The merchants and royal patronage in Dwarsamodara (as Hallebid was known then) were fearful that the Chennakeshava temple would make Belur a more prominent city. Threatened, they united under Ketamalla, a commander under Vishnuwardhana, and commissioned the Hoysaleshwar temple at Hallebid. The temple building started somewhere between 1119 and 1140CE.

The temple was under construction for the next 86 years and is still considered to be in complete. The temple is the antitheses of the Great Pyramid. The sheer size of the pyramids makes your jaw drop. The apparent detailed knowledge of right angles and hypotenuses  thousands of years before Pythagoras blows the mind. Yet, there is nary a sculpture or carving. As if the effort in the structure was so monumental, neither the architect nor the builder had any energy left to think about aesthetics. Whereas Hoysaleshwara is structurally a simple rectangular box, 200 feet at the longest and not very tall. With the most basic of the structure, heart and soul seems to have been poured in detailing every square millimeter.

 

Northern entrance to the Hoysaleshwar temple, Hallebid.

The temple has been built on a raised platform (Jagati  pronounced Jug-uh-thee). This was perhaps an attempt to raise the rather diminutive temple. While the platform provides a circumambulatory for the religious, it opens up amazing angles for the the photographers.  (Centuries later Frank Lloyd Wright’s distinctive style would include a raised platform.)

 

The star shaped platform of Hoysaleshwar temple.

The platform is star shaped.  The star shape has been created by starting with a square and then rotating it twice, clockwise and anticlockwise by about 15 degrees. This simple innovation does two things. It gives the temple thrice as many corners. Corners that architects all over the world, new and ancient, love as the changing angle of the walls provides prime real estate to break the tempo.  It also increases the total circumference providing more surface area to decorate.

I realized, without the walls zig-zagging,  the onlooker would have been inundated with several contiguous feet of intricate carving. The star shape shape creates nooks and niches that help focus attention on smaller portions of carvings at a time.

 

Beautifully detailed exterior of Hoysaleshwar temple, Hallebid.

The temple has been profusely sculpted. The carvings are exquisite and extremely detailed. The northern India was under the Muslim rule. Temple building activity in the North had come to a grinding halt. The sculptors flocking south to find their daily bread. 

Hoysalas provided them shelter and used them extensively in their ambitious temple building spree. The sculptors brought with them different styles and the confluence gave rise to a distinctive Hoysala architecture.

Hand lathed pillars

The temple extensively uses hand lathed columns, in the porches on the east of the temple as well as in the main manthapas. The pillars inside have more intricate carvings than outside, with no two pillars similar to each other.

Besides being a place of worship, the temple was a meeting place for head council, an evening hangout for a commoner, a theatre for music and dance aficionados.

At this early hour, with barely a soul in site, I experienced the lighting of the first lamp of the day. A peep inside the camphor smelling dark sanctum revealed an ancient Shivalinga guarded by stone dwarapals (sentries)

The temple has two inner sanctums, as was the Hoysala style of building temples. This sanctum is dedicated to Queen Shantala Devi. She was renowned for her ethereal beauty. She was also an accomplished Bharatnatyam dancer and used to practice here. The stone behind the heavily vermillioned Nandi (the bull) is said to have been literally polished by her footsteps.

I headed out again. After all, one of the famous clichés here is you enjoy Belur from inside and Hallebid from outside.

1200 detailed jewels on the statue

I paused outside this sculpture. Every jewel on this piece has been detailed to the last millimeter, about 1200 of them. They are a living catalog of the 12th century jewels. I could not take my eyes off it. I would not be surprised if the craftsman needed a decade to finish the statue. The amputated arms are a shorthand for “The Mughals were here”.  Whether it was Malik Kafur in 1310 CE or Mohammad Tughlaq in 1326 CE, even in the frenzy of destruction, the soldiers left the statue alone, merely knocking off the two forearms.

Friezes

The walls outside have been decorated in bands. The elephants at the bottom, symbolizing strength. No two elephants around the 800 feet perimeter of the temple are alike. Above that horses for speed. Then a band that depicts scenes from Ramayana, followed by mythical animals and birds. The temple is relatively small, about 200 feet square, and It is important to have a knowledgeable guide and a lot of patience. Every wall has a story and every story is worth hearing.

One can imagine this place at the height of its glory, a glory it enjoyed until Malik Kafur sacked it. It would be around this time that the beautiful Dwarasamudra got the name Hallebid or hallebedu which means a ruined city. Hoysalas moved their capital to Belur until the dynasty was extinguished in the mid-14th century. Two captains from the Hoysala army, Hakka and Bukka, created an empire that was to be another golden chapter in the Indian history. That empire was called Vijaynagar.

I promised myself I would be back here, fully knowing it was a promise I would not keep.  There are a 149 more such surviving Hoysala temples, each one beautiful, within a few hundred kilometers. Hoysala was one of hundreds of dynasties of Southern India.  There is a lot more to see in India. Repeat visit is not a luxury I would enjoy.

 

 

Here are some of my favorite details. 

The statue shows a dead bull in a battle. I loved the way, the sculptor decided to cross section the ledge to show the dangling tongue.

 

There is an ancient saying in Marathi. Loosely translated it says that for a boy at 16, every girl is gorgeous. This sculpture shows a well formed nymphet with a face of a donkey, yet the testosterone laden lad seems unaware.

A soldier peering through what appears to be a telescope while a battery of scud like missiles shower down on him.