Belur and Halebidu served as the capital of Hoysala empire, which ruled modern day Karnataka and part of Tamilnadu from 10th to the middle of 14th century. It is located at Hassan district in Karnataka, at a distance of 220 km from Bangalore. The ideal way to visit the place is to take KSTDC conducted tour, which covers Belur, Halebidu and Sravanabelagola. Otherwise the place is well connected to Bangalore by bus and train. There is regular train service between Bangalore and Arsikere. Belur and Halebidu is within 50 km of Arsikere. You can take a bus or hire a car from Arsikere. But you miss Sravanabelagola, which is 80 km away and in opposite direction. For return journey, you can take Jansatabdhi express from Arsikere at 6.30 pm. Being well developed tourist spots, availability of food and drink is not a problem here.
We took Chalukya express from Yesvantpur at 6.30 in the morning and reached Arsikere in two and half hours. The bus for Halebidu was to start around 11. So we (five of us) decided to hire a car(@700). Our first destination was Halebidu. The road was reasonably good, albeit narrow. The Hoysaleswara temple in Halebidu is dedicated to lord Shiva and was built in the 12th century. Inside the temple there is a big, dark but refreshingly cool hall, supported by decorated pillars. The Shiva linga is situated in a well lit room. But the real beauty of the temple lies in it's outside walls. There are numerous sculptures carved to minute details – mythological stories, Ramayana, Mahabharata etc. More astonishing – there is hardly any space left untouched by the sculptors. The only sad thing was, being weekend, there was too much crowd. Some shooting was going on inside, which added to our woes. But overall, it was a great experience. For nature lovers, there is a huge lake adjacent to the temple complex.
Our next destination was Chennakesava temple in Belur, 20
dedicated to lord Vishnu.
This is actually a temple complex, where several temples were built over a period of time. The central one is Chennakesava temple. The hall inside, supported by decorated pillars, is dark. But there are guides with light to enlighten you at a nominal price. The main attraction inside are four sculptures of Shilabalika in various poses (“Beauty with the mirror”, “The lady with the parrot” etc). The outside walls are again full of minutely carved magnificent sculptures depicting the Hindu epics. Look for the statue of the man fighting the tiger. This was the symbol of Hoysala empire.
For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belur and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halebidu
Team members: Ankur, Bratin, Rajdip, Supratim and Somnath
Photographs taken by: Bratin and Rajdip
Halebidu:
Belur:
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