Attaching a few pics of places we had been to over weekend while in shimoga. Shimoga is just over 300 kms from Bangalore, and is often called Gateway to Western Ghats. There are several beautiful places that one can travel to and back while staying in shimoga. To list a few famous ones, Jog falls, Honemaradu, Kodachadri and many more. There are several Falls, Forts, temples, hills that one can choose to visit while staying here within few hours distance. The city in itself has rich a very rich history. As one of my aunts stays in this city, i have been fortunate enough to be able to travel here often and covered several of these beautiful places. I will try to write about the earlier trips in separate blogs. Here i am mentioning only the ones i was able to cover during this trip
Sacred Heart Church This beautiful church is more recent addition to shimoga compared to the ancient heritage. You can go visit this place mostly as sight seeing place.
Amrutesvara Temple in Amruthapura: This is a very beautiful temple located just about an hours drive from Shimoga.
There was no official guide present here, but a nice gentleman offered to show us around and speak about the history of the place. He didn't have any official rates as such but mentioned we can pay him whatever we thought was appropriate after he was done showing us around. If you visit here, its definitely worth taking his help as this place is rich in story.
The temple itself was built in 12th century by Hoysala king Veera Ballala II as a mark of respect to his dead general Amrutheshwara Dandanayaka. The story as told by our guide was that this heroic General had fought close to 4 battles here with the local rulers and won each one of them. After the fourth battle, he was killed by treachery while on his way back. The Hoysala King who was close to the general built this temple as a mark of respect. The temple through most of its time of its existence has been known mostly only to locals and remained untouched by thieves or pillagers. It has only very recently(relatively speaking, in the past 40-50 years) been taken over by the ASI to secure and preserve. The temple is still in use and poojas offered to lord Shiva daily.
The walls of the temples have the complete story of Krishna, Ramayana and Mahabharata. The carvings are so delicate, that it almost feels as the artist worked on butter rather than stone the way he was able to carve out the intricate forms to depict the various stories. The inside of the temple consists of several rows of shining lathe finished pilalrs. Its amazing how almost a thousand years back the architects were able to accomplish something of such finesse with the tools of their time.
The below stone depicting the story of Amrutheshwara Dandanayaka. It needs to be read from bottom to top.
I will post in a subsequent blog more pics of panels in the wall depicting the story of Mahbharata and Ramayana.
Sacred Heart Church This beautiful church is more recent addition to shimoga compared to the ancient heritage. You can go visit this place mostly as sight seeing place.
The temple itself was built in 12th century by Hoysala king Veera Ballala II as a mark of respect to his dead general Amrutheshwara Dandanayaka. The story as told by our guide was that this heroic General had fought close to 4 battles here with the local rulers and won each one of them. After the fourth battle, he was killed by treachery while on his way back. The Hoysala King who was close to the general built this temple as a mark of respect. The temple through most of its time of its existence has been known mostly only to locals and remained untouched by thieves or pillagers. It has only very recently(relatively speaking, in the past 40-50 years) been taken over by the ASI to secure and preserve. The temple is still in use and poojas offered to lord Shiva daily.
The walls of the temples have the complete story of Krishna, Ramayana and Mahabharata. The carvings are so delicate, that it almost feels as the artist worked on butter rather than stone the way he was able to carve out the intricate forms to depict the various stories. The inside of the temple consists of several rows of shining lathe finished pilalrs. Its amazing how almost a thousand years back the architects were able to accomplish something of such finesse with the tools of their time.
The below stone depicting the story of Amrutheshwara Dandanayaka. It needs to be read from bottom to top.
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