Hoysaleswara Temple

Hoysaleshwara temple, also referred simply as the Halebidu temple, is a 12th-century Hindu temple dedicated to the god Shiva. It is the largest monument in Halebidu, a town in the state of Karnataka, India and the former capital of the Hoysala Empire. The temple was built on the banks of a large man-made lake, and sponsored by King Vishnuvardhana of the Hoysala Empire. Its construction started around 1121 CE and was complete in 1160 CE.
During the early 14th century, Halebidu was twice sacked and plundered by the Muslim armies of the Delhi Sultanate from northern India, and the temple and the capital fell into a state of ruin and neglect. It is 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Hassan city and about 210 kilometres (130 mi) from Bengaluru.
The Hoysaleswara temple is a Shaivism tradition monument, yet reverentially includes many themes from Vaishnavism and Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, as well as images from Jainism.
The Hoysaleswara temple is a twin-temple dedicated to Hoysaleswara and Santaleswara Shiva lingas, named after the masculine and feminine aspects, both equal and joined at their transept. It has two Nandi shrines outside, where each seated Nandi face the respective Shiva linga inside. The temple includes a smaller sanctum for the Hindu Sun god Surya. It once had superstructure towers, but no longer and the temple looks flat. The temple faces east, though the monument is presently visited from the north side. Both the main temples and the Nandi shrines are based on a square plan. The temple was carved from soapstone.
It is notable for its sculptures, intricate reliefs, detailed friezes as well its history, iconography, inscriptions in North Indian and South Indian scripts. The temple artwork provides a pictorial window into the life and culture in the 12th century South India. About 340 large reliefs depict the Hindu theology and associated legends. Numerous smaller friezes narrate Hindu texts such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana. Some friezes below large reliefs portray its narrative episodes.
The artwork in Hoysaleswara temple is damaged but largely intact. Within a few kilometers of the temple are numerous ruins of Hoysala architecture, including the Jain Basadi complex and the Kedareshwara temple.
The Hoysaleswara Temple, along with the nearby Chennakeshava Temple at Belur and the Keshava Temple at Somanathapura was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2023 as part of the Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas.
The Hoysaleswara Temple is in Halebidu, also called Halebeedu, Halebid, Dorasamudra. Halebidu is a town in Hassan district of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is about 30 kilometres (19 mi) northwest of Hassan. The temple is about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from Belur, Karnataka temples. Halebidu has no nearby airport, and is about 210 kilometres (130 mi) west of Bengaluru (IATA Code: BLR), about 4 hours drive accessible with a four lane NH75 highway through Hassan. Halebidu is connected by railway network at Hassan to major cities of Karnataka.
The Hoysala period of South Indian history began about 1000 CE and continued through 1346 CE. In this period, they built around 1,500 temples in 958 centres. Halebidu was originally called Dorasamudra in its inscriptions, possibly derived from Dvarasamudra (Sanskrit words "Dvara" (gateway, door) and Samudra (ocean, sea, large water body)). The capital used to be Belur, Karnataka, but Dorasamudra became the established capital under king Vishnuvardhana and served as the capital of the Hoyasala Empire for nearly 300 years.
Unlike other Hoysala temples that have survived into the modern age, and despite numerous inscriptions in the temple premises, the Hoysaleswara Temple lacks a dedication inscription. It is likely lost, along with the many other features of the original temple. An inscription found about five kilometers from the temple site, near the Kallesvara temple ruins in Ghattadahalli, states that Ketamalla – officer in the employ of king Vishnuvardhana constructed this temple. It also notes that the king made grant of lands to support the construction, the operation and the maintenance of the Shiva temple in Saka 1043, or 1121 CE. It was not the only temple built in that era. The inscriptions suggest that the capital consisted of numerous other temples, both of Hinduism and Jainism traditions, along with stepwells, ponds and mantapas (mandapas, public halls) in the vicinity of the large Dorasamudhra lake. It is the largest temple built by the Hoysalas that is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in South India.
The Hoysala Empire and its capital Dorasamudra was invaded, plundered and destroyed in early 14th century by the Delhi Sultanate armies of Alauddin Khilji, with Belur and Halebidu becoming the target of plunder and destruction in 1326 CE by another Delhi Sultanate army of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq. The territory was taken over by the Vijayanagara Empire. The Hoysala kingdom, states James C. Harle, came to an end in mid 14th century, when King Ballala III was killed in a war with the Muslim army of Madurai Sultanate. Dorasamudra and its temples became ruins, the capital abandoned and the site became known as "Halebidu" (literally, "old camp or capital"). About 300 of the original Hoysala Empire temples survive in different states of damage, scattered around Karnataka. Of these, states Hardy, about 70 had been studied to varying degrees of detail by 1995.
With the defeat of Tipu Sultan in 1799, Mysore came under the influence of the colonial British rule and scholarship. The Hoysaleswara temple ruins were among the earliest surveyed, then earliest photographed in the 1850s, and the subject of several rounds of good will repairs and restoration that lacked thorough documentation. Ruin panels from other temples were reused here to cover the Nandi mandapa, parts of friezes used to repair the plinth. Thus, the Hoysaleswara temple as it is survives in the contemporary era is a composite of the original Hindu temple architecture and design that was open, to which stone screens with outer walls and doors were added by the 14th-century, whose crowning towers (shikhara) have been lost, and whose ruins were repaired and restored many times in the 19th and 20th-century.
The Hoysaleswara temple, also spelled as Hoysaleshwara or Hoywalesvara temple, is a twin-temple, or dvikuta vimana (plan with two shrines and two superstructures). The two temples are of the same size, and their sanctums open to the east, facing sunrise. The sanctum of the "Hoysaleswara" (the king) and the other for "Shantaleswara" (the queen, Shantala Devi) both have a Shiva linga. Outside on the east side of the main temples are two smaller shrines, each with seated Nandi. To the east of the southern Nandi shrine is a smaller attached Surya shrine, where there is a 7 feet (2.1 m) tall Surya statue facing the Nandi and the sanctum. Historians such as Adam Hardy state that the Hoysalesware temple shows evidence of other shrines but these are now missing, lost to history.
The temple complex as a whole is placed on a jagati (literally, worldly platform). The platform is 15 feet wide around the outer walls of the temple, meant for the visitor to walk on and view the artwork clockwise while completing the circumambulation of the sanctums. It is called the pradakshina-patha (path for circumambulation). The smaller shrines share the same jagati as the main temple, connected by stone stairs. The two sanctums are next to each other in a north–south alignment, both face east, and each have in front a mandapa (also spelled mantapa, community hall). The two mandapas are connected giving a view of a large, open navaranga for family and public gatherings.
The temple had towers on top of each sanctum, but they are now missing. According to Foekema, these towers must have followed the star shape of the shrine, because Hoyasala temples that are better preserved have them. The superstructure over the vestibule which connects the shrine to the mantapa, called sukanasi (a low tower that looks like an extension of the main tower) is also missing. Similar the row of decorated miniature roofs, the eastern perimeter walls and other shrines with the main temple are all gone.
The temple was built with chloritic schist, more commonly known as greenschist or soapstone. The soapstone is soft when quarried and easier to carve into intricate shapes, but hardens over time when exposed to air.
The temple outer walls is intricately carved. Its lowest layers consist of bands with friezes that consist of (from bottom to top) elephants, lions, scrolls with nature and miniature dancers, horses, scrolls, scenes from Hindu texts, mythical beasts (makara) and swans. According to Shadakshari Settar, the artwork shows details as "no two lions are alike in the entire span that covers more than a furlong (200 metres)", the artists "captured the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the main episodes of the Bhagavata". The temple's outer wall is a pictorial narration of Hindu epics, and its middle portion has large panels where "the entire pantheon of Hindu divinities are presented, it is a manual of Hindu iconography", states Settar. According to Foekema and other art historians, the quality and quantity of the epics-related "friezes are amazing", but the panel series do not complete the story in a stretch, rather after a stretch, another text is intermingled in for a while. The outer walls of the Hoysaleswara temple shrines feature 340 large reliefs.
The friezes and wall images on the outer wall predominantly narrate the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana, the other major Shaiva and Vaishnava Puranas. Some main displays include (clockwise):
In terms of theology from different Hindu traditions, the large images on the outer walls of the west side present the following frequencies (excluding small panels and miniature friezes):
The walls on the other side have more large images.
The temple has four entrances. The one normally used by visitors as main entry nowadays is the northern entrance closest to the parking lot. There is one entry on the south side and two on the east side, facing two large detached open pavilions whose ceiling is supported by lathe turned pillars.
The temple originally had an open navaranga, wherein the mantapa pavilions were visible from outside shrines and the outside was visible to those in the mandapa. In the era of Hoysala king Narasimha I, the mantapa was closed, doors were added and perforated stone screens placed, according to an inscription found in the temple. Along with the four doors, the later artists added dvarapalas and decorations as follows:
Outside the southern doorway, in the park, are large statues, one of Ganesha. The statue was among those which were originally farther out at the temple premises outer gate, but damaged and collected from ruins there. They were recovered and placed close to the temple. The navaranga includes two small niches facing each other between the two temples where they are joined at the transept. These have carvings and artwork, but the statues inside each is missing. There is a stone panel near the western niche with a large Sanskrit inscription in a North Indian and a South Indian script.
The interior walls of the temple are quite plain compared to the outer wall, except for the lathe turned pillars that run in rows between the north and south entrances. The four pillars in front of each shrine are the most ornate and the only ones that have the madanika sculptures in their pillar brackets.
The fused mandapa features a row of pillars aligned along the north-west axis. In the central navaranga of each temple's mandapa are four pillars and a raised ceiling that is intricately carved. Each of the four pillars of this central navaranga had four standing madanakai (Salabhanjika, mostly female) figures, or a total of 16 standing figures per temple. Of the 32 figures on the central pillars for the two temples, 11 remain. Only 6 damaged ones have survived in the north temple and 5 in the south temple. A closer examination of the pillar's capital suggests that there was a figure on each pillar in the eastern row facing the sunrise, but all of these show signs of destruction and none of those images have survived. The pillar near the second eastern door have two damaged madanakai, but the better preserved are those in the central navaranga.
The twin-temple has two sanctums (garbha griha), both with Shiva linga. One sanctum is dedicated to "Hoysaleswara" Shiva (the king) and the other for "Shantaleswara" Shiva (the queen, Shantala). Both are of equal size. Each sanctum is a square with a darsana dvara (view doorway) on the east, with three inches on the north, west and south. The doorways are flanked on each side by a dvarapala, each leading to a sukanasi (vestibule chamber). There is intricate carving above the lintel between the dvarapalas, presenting Shiva with Parvati, along with other devas and devis, as well as two large makaras (mythical syncretic sea creatures). On the makaras are Varuna and his wife Varuni riding. The doorjambs are decorated with purnaghatas (vessels of abundance). The sanctum square originally had a tower (shikhara) above rising towards the sky to complete the vimana superstructure, but the towers have been lost to history and the temple looks flat. The sanctum walls are plain, avoiding distraction to the devotee and focussing the attention of the visitor at the spiritual symbol.
The temple has smaller shrines with its own sanctum. For example, the Nandi shrines feature a Nandi in its sanctum, while the Surya shrine features the Hindu Sun god.
The Hoysaleswara Temple premises include a museum managed by the Archaeological Survey of India. It contains numerous pieces of ruins and temple artwork recovered from the site for closer three dimensional examination. The temple premises also has the so-called Garuda Sthamba (Garuda pillar) to the south of the temple. It is also damaged, with its top portion gone. It contains an inscription that breaks off in the middle of the sentence. The part which can be read states that a general Lakshmana, his wife and followers sacrificed themselves after the death of Ballala II. In the middle of the pillar are eight male figures, four of whom are shown as using their swords to sacrifice themselves (siditale-godu). One of the sacrificer is shown seated in a namaste posture preparing for the sacrifice, while others are shown in the process of the sacrifice. The images represent the devotion of these to their leader and their determination to die with him.
The temple premises show evidence of other shrine and temples. Just like the Surya (Sun) monument that is to the east of one Nandi, there was a Chandra (Moon) monument attached to the other Nandi. Excavations on the southwest side of the temple revealed the remains of a destroyed temple.
Numerous temple artwork panels contain signatures or statements by the artists or the guild they belonged to, and these are usually at the artwork's pedestal or underneath. The most repeated names of artists found at the Hoysaleswara temple include Manibalaki, Mabala, Ballana, Bochana, Ketana, Bama, Balaki and Revoja. The guilds can be identified by the organization's icon marked and names inscribed such as Agni-Indra, Indra, Paduca (.west) and Paduvala-badaga (.northwest).
According to the 19th-century art critic James Fergusson, it is a "marvellous exhibition of human labor to be found even in the patient east and surpasses anything in Gothic art". The Hoysaleswara temple of Halebidu, has been described by Percy Brown as the "highest achievement of Hoysala architecture" and as the "supreme climax of Indian architecture" despite appearing rather flat and dull from distance given the towers are now missing.
Richard Oakley was among the early photographers who visited this temple in the 1850s. He called it "most gorgeous" and "far surpasses" any South Indian temple he had seen:
James Fergusson never visited this temple or Halebid, but he was the first to review all available field notes on Hoysalesvara temple after he had retired and returned to England. He focused exclusively on the Hoysalesvara temple, published a brief art-historical review in 1866, followed by a more complete analysis in 1876. He wrote:
According to Kristen Kasdorf, Fergusson's publications on Indian architecture have been influential, served as the introductory foundation to several generations of scholars. His exclusive focus on this temple helped bring attention to it, but without the context of other Halebid temples. Fergusson erred in many details including his wrong guess that Hoysalas started building the Hoysalesvara temple in 1235, continued working on it over 85 years and stopped construction due to the "Mahomedan invasion" of 1310. Fergusson's error was copied in many Indian texts for a while. A more correct history emerged as more inscriptions were discovered and translated by scholars. His commentary on the Hoysalesvara temple, states Kadorf, expresses admiration yet "falls squarely within the purview of the prevailing imperialist narrative" where the Western monuments were portrayed as "rational" while the Eastern monuments called as "chaotic", "emotional and excess reigning over serious measured judgment". Fergusson's reception of the Hoysalesvara temple was often quoted at length for nearly a century, and continues to be quoted for the Western audience without the necessary context.
In the 20th-century, Indian authors such as Narasimachar and Srikantaiya published their monographs, calling it as one of the temples that realised the "magnificence of the Hoysala art". Krishna – one of the directors of Mysore Archaeological department under the Wodeyars, wrote his 1930 annual report – which remains the most thorough report on the site to date. The temple should compared to jewelry, and not other temples, wrote Krishna, with reliefs and sculptures of "high class possessing beauty of ideas and art".