Belur Halebeedu day trip from Bangalore

Belur and Halebeedu are twin cities which are about 250 kms from Bangalore. The two places could be covered in a day if you do not intend to take a very detailed view at the marvelous architecture of the temples at these places. This post tries to throw some light that could help travellers plan their trip, and have an idea of what to look for at Belur and Halebeedu.

Route to Belur and Halebeedu (from Bannerghatta Road)

We took the following route. Zoom in the embedded map to to learn more.

We first went to Belur and from there we went to Halebeedu.

Me and my wife took turns driving.

The roads are tolled and are very well maintained. We reached Belur in 4 hours (average of 70 kmph). We had breakfast at Uduppi Garden. The breakfast was good. Except for being sidelined for about 10 minutes for our CM, Sri Kumaraswami to pass, we didn't have any more delays on the road. The CM still has a fleet of escorts moving with him.

A snap of the roads that we traveled along

Belur

The temple at Halebeedu was build somewhere in the 12th century by King Vishnuvardhana of the Hoysala empire. The temple was built as a symbol of victory of the Hoysalas over the Cholas. We could have roamed around the temple, but we thought of understanding the temple better by hiring a guide. There were a few guides available, and they charged a very little amount for taking us around the temple and explaining the various specialities and marvels of this temple. The guided tour would take about an hour. Most of what I am sharing here is from what I learnt from him. I would highly recommend you to hire a guide yourself so that you can fully appreciate the extravagance. It also helps the guides stick to their jobs and thus we could spread the awareness of our glorious past to the generations to come.

The Hoysalas ruled between the 10th and the 14th century. The 5th Hoysala ruler, named Vishnuvardhana extended the kingdom. He regained a lot of land from the Cholas. After regaining the Thalakkadu area, he started getting called as ThalakkaduKundaDaiva. The temple at Hoysala was built as a memory of the victory over the Cholas. VijayaNarayana (Victorious Vishnu) aka Channakeshava (beautiful keshava) is the name of the diety of this temple. The temple is built with Soft Soapstone. The stone absorbs moisture and gets hard. These soft soapstones are found only in hilly areas like Coorg, Yercaud and Wayanad. This is the same stone they use for making vessels for putting pickles.

There is a stone pillar called VijayaDeepaSthambha. People used to put lamp on the top of sthambha during karthika month. One interesting thing about the pillar is that it has one corner thats lifted up in the air.

Now we climbed the steps to the temple. At the main door on top there is a beautiful sculpture of a Garuda. All the 10 incarnations are sculptured, with Narasimha at the center and the biggest.

I am going to paste pictures of various interesting sculptures in extra large size for you to refer to along with a briefly caption of what each of them are (and mean). All the descriptions are according to the guide whom we hired (So, please don't fight with me if you have a different opinion).

At the top of the entrance we can see a fairly large Garuda with the Narasimha on top. We can also notice all the dasavatharas (10 incarnations of Mahavishnu) sculptured around Narasimha.

This is the sculpture of a non-existent animal. Just like everything in the Hindu religion, even this is a symbol - a symbol that shows how a ruler has to be

Trunk of an elephant - Strength of an elephant

Face of a crocodile - Stability of a crocodile

Leg of a lion - Force of a lion's claws

Tail of a peacock - Beauty of a peacock

Stomach of a pig - Digest the problems of his land just like a pig digests anything.

A sculpture of Darpana sundari - a lady looking at a mirror ready to put the last makeup - the bindi.

The idol of Channakeshavah

A lady with a parrot on her hand. Giving training to the parrot how to speak.

Bhishmacharya in the bed of arrows (sharashayya).

Monkey pulling the saree of a lady, and the lady angrily trying to beat the monkey with a stick.

Bhima playing with trees - hide and seek.

People playing with the dice. This could be depicting the gambling that the Pandavas and the Kauravas had in Mahabharatha tale

This is a sculpture of a lizard. Some people in India believe that if a lizard falls on you, it brings with it bad luck. So people come to this temple and pray to this to remove their problems. They apply oil or button on the sculpture (probably as a decoration). By looking at the gloss of the sculpture, it seems that there are lots of people on which lizards have fallen. :)

A lady playing the drum, at the same time she tunes it to change the pitch of the sound. This is a very common musical instrument in temples. The jewels are lifted up as she beats the drum which means she is dancing too.

A lady wearing something like the current fashion - a three fourth. :D

A man embracing a lady. But the lady's face is like a donkey. This signifies that in youth you might get blinded and can fall for anything.

Lizard trying to catch a fly thats sitting on a fruit. Signifies how life is. The fly is trying to get the fruit, but does not know what danger awaits it.

There are multiple forms of Vishnu and each of them have a name. In fact there are 24 names for Vishnu in this form of holding the shankhu (conch shell), chakra (Discus), Gada (Mace) and Pankaja (lotus). The different ways in which these four can be held is 24 (4 factorial). And each permutation and combination has a name.

Significance of the shankhu, chakra, gada and pankaja

Shankhu represents sound. Shankhu creates the Aum sound which encapsulates all the sounds. It could also mean that Vishnu is always ready to blow the conch to start the battle against the evil, as a conch is blown just before a battle.

The discus which has a lot of spokes represents how things manifest differently to each one of us even though there is only one central thing. This aligns with what Krishna says "I am one, but I can become many". This is one of the central principles Hinduism is based on, where we believe that everything in this universe is a part of the ultimate energy. Each of us has the freedom to view the world the way he wants, and respect the form that he likes. Thats how we have infinite "Gods". Each of the God is a manifestation of the same energy.

Gada symbolizes power. Intellect or the mind is the biggest power with which we can control anything. Pretty similar to the "Knowledge is power" statement, ehh?

Pankaja symbolizes the enlightened mind which arises from the water and mud below. The mud and water (symbolizing the worldly attachments and desire) does not stick to it. The enlightened mind too cannot be trapped with the physical aspects of life. It has grown beyond that.

The temple is shrunken will look like this. Its amazing to understand how magnificient the architect was.

Narasimha taking out the intestine of Hiranyakashyapu who is locked in a deadlock. See how beautifully the intestine has been carved out.

Gaja samhaara moorthi: Deamon (Gajasura) wearing the skin of the elephant is killed by Shiva. The deamon wanted Shiva to be always him. So Shiva wears the skin of the deamon and thus fulfils the deamon's desire. Shows even the deamons who pray will get their desires fulfilled.

The whole temple has sculptures of elephants around it. If we take the picture of each elephant, and play it one by one, it seems as if its walking.

Concept of multi storied buildings. Sit out.

Varahavathaara - liberating the mother earth

Arjuna shooting the arrow on the eye of the fish during the draupathi swayamvara

Rathi and Manmadha (Kamadevas) - Holding sugarcane and flower arrow. Crocodile is his symbol. The concept is that love should be sweet as sugarcane and even arrows would be as soft as flowers. In fact there are five flowers, each flower symbolising fascination, disturbance, weakening, desiccation and destruction.

Swargahastha - notice the hand thats towards the heaven.

Chandika - Having a stick with the skull, even the crown is decorated with skulls.

Bhasmasura - Deamon killed by tricking him to keep his hand on his own forehead. Whatever he touches turned into ash, and thus he destroyed himself. Notice the tips of the toes and the fingers. These are in line with the nose. Architectural marvel.

Vishnu and Lakshmi enjoying the fight between Garuda and Hanuman. Garuda once got so egoistic thinking that he is the one who transports Vishnu. Vishnu wanted to remove this and so arranged for this fight. Hanuman understood Mahavishnu's desire and engaged in the fight. Notice the smile of Hanuman.

Anandapadmanabha - The guide told this funny story explaining why Vishnu sleeps on a snake. He says that we will loose our sleep seeing a snake, so think how Vishnu will feel when sleeping on such a big snake. He says that this arrangement was done so that Vishnu does not sleep and thus always takes care of the world.

Lady putting a toe ring with the help of an assistant

Inside the temple, you see the following.

A magnificent crown is carved on stone. The work is so complicated and delicate that its difficult to believe that its made of stone.

A sculpture of Mohini. The second toe is longer than the thumb toe. This is considered as a symbol of luck. Gals, just see your toe lengths. The feet should not be firm on the ground. A portion of the feet should always be above the ground. See how the light is able to pass through beneath the feet.

The sculpture of Bhuvaneshwari

The dome is in the form of an inverted lotus. The dome has 56 pieces and is not joined by any bonding material. A lot is sculptured, mostly from stories related to Maha vishnu and His incarnations. I could not zoom out to show the whole dome.

There is a pillar with a lot of sculptures, and one of the areas is left blank. It is said that nothing should be completed, and there should be something left out. 

The maintenance of the temple has been undertaken very well. People working here had the enthusiasm and energy to preserve the temple. I clearly saw the "ownership" of the place in each of them there. Some other photos which are self explanatory are given below.

I thank our guide, Mr Shashikumar for his wonderful explanations. Almost all of the information I have given above are from the notes I took from him. I would strongly advice anyone who go to these places to take the help of a guide. There is lot to learn from them.

From there, we went to Halebeedu. We had packed our lunch. We stopped and had our lunch on our way. The temple at Halebeedu is another masterpiece. This temple is dedicated to Shiva. The construction took almost 40 years to complete. A couple of centuries later, muslim invaders attacked and destroyed the temple. The temple has two dieties - Hoysaleshwara and Santaleshwara (both Shiva). They are faced by two huge Nandis. We could not spend much time here, and hence the lack of a detailed description and photography.

There are a lot of things that we learn by visiting such places. Even if you are not a devotee you can enjoy the temple. This is just one example of the great architectural marvel we had at a time where the others were finding it hard to build a house that does not topple down during a rain. Unfortunately a lot of external and internal forces destroyed a lot of what we could take pride on. A visit to a similar place in a "developed country" might create quite a big hole in your pockets. But here the entry is free.

Let me end this blog with a humble request to you, my dear reader, to help pass on the message of our past glory, and stay united against all the external and internal destructive forces that try to slow down our re-bounce to yet another age where we will be able to lead the world.