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Construction
Construction of Hoysaleswara Temple
12th century Shiva temple in Halebidu, Karnataka
- 1160
- South Asia
Construction
12th century Shiva temple in Halebidu, Karnataka
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Hoysaleshwara temple (also spelled as Hoysaleswara, Hoysaleśvara or Hoywalesvara 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 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 Shaiva 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 sanskritized as 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 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 Hoysaleswara 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.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Hoysaleswara Temple”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.