Gomateshwara of Shravanabelagola

Shravanabelagula is located in Hassan district , Karnataka, India. It is one of the mot important Jain pilgrim center. How it got its name?

"Bel" means white and "Kola", the pond, the city has a beautiful white pond in the center. It is believed that great emperor Chandragupta Maurya,became ascetic under the Jain saint Bhadrabahu and ending his days in  sallekhana (death by fasting) here. To this day one can see his foot print. More than 800 inscriptions are found at shravanbelgula,dating various time from 600 to 1830 AD.

Statue of Gomteshwara
Who is Gomteshwara?
According to Jainism, lord Bahubali  was son of first Trithankar "Purudev" also known as "Vrishabhadeva or Adinath". Lord Bahubali had to fight with his own brother "Bharata" to became the Chakravarti (Supreme Emperor) but he changed his mind and went to the forest for penance. According to legend, he stood meditating for such long time that anthills formed on the ground where he stood,snakes lay coiled at his feet  and creepers grew around his body.
It was the king Ramchmalla II of Ganga Dynasty who inspired by the great soul of lord Bahubali, built the cossal statue of Lord Bahubali.

The statue is 58 feet 8 inch on the Vidyagiri hills, and it is world largest monolithic stone statue. The base of  the statue has inscriptions in Kannada date 981 AD.The Statue is curved out of black granite rock.

Let EXPLORE ...

Main Entrance to Temple

A flight of 641 stone cut steps

The Welcome Gate

Reminds of Yudhisthira going to heaven

Foot Print of Chandragupta Mauraya

ChandraGupta Mauraya's foot print

Notice

Jain Gurus

24 Jain Tirthankaras

Old Kananda Scripts

Gommateshwara 58 feet , 26 feet wide and 10 feet long

Carved out black granite of the hills

AntHill in background signifies his incessant penance

A snake from Antthill

A creeper which twine around both legs

His shoulders broad and arm straight down.

His arms culminating as a cluster of flowers and berries at upper portion of the arm

How to get here :
Nearest Airport : Bangalore International Airport
Nearest Railway: Hassan Railway station
Distance from Bangalore is approx 297 km, book a cab, drive your own vehicle, get into a bus, anyways you have to visit this place once before you DIE!!!

Somanthpura :-Sri Ugra Narahimha Swamy Temple- Part1

South India is famous for its larger than life temples but I heard a very little about this Temple , but once I was there, I felt I need to write about this place and this temple particularly.  

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Picture 1. Lord Narahimha Swamy killing Hiranyakaspu.

Come let explore the "Somnath Temple" , near Mysore. Don't go by the name its a Vishnu Temple (not a Shiva Temple). The name of the village where this temple is, is Somnathpur. And also according to some Somnath was the guy who built this temple there. This Temple is built in "Hoyasala style".

Somnathpur is a small village on the banks of the river Cauvery that was founded by the commander of the Hoyasala , Somnath.

  

As I said this Temple is built in honor of Hindu God Vishnu,
In this is temple you can see all the avatars of lord Vishnu. The platform of the temple is in the form of a Star, if you notice in  this pic above.

In this post I will try to provide as much as detail I remember but guys I must say be there to feel the synergy.

The architect of this temple wanted to create a harmony between North Indian style of temple and South India of temple construction . This is evident from the many sculptures in this temple as the pictures below

The Steeple of the  dome called "Shikhara" in Sanskrit, of almost all the temples in northern india are constructed as shown in picture ( example Kedarnath Temple) .

Notice the "Shikhara" in the second picture is little different from the earlier one. This is how temples are constructed in Southern Indian states.Now the common thing in both the above picture is the  "Lion"  or "Shima"  and that was the royal emblem of the "Hoyasala Kingdom "

 The Picture above is royal Emblem Of the "Hoyasala Kingdom".

The above picture is very interesting and symbolic too. Okay here is test ..try decoding it before reading.

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This is work done all round the temple at bottom most layer. Here the elephants at the bottom layer indicates the strength  to carry the weight of the structure. In other word is signifies a very very strong foundation. The second layer depicts soldiers and horses , its for the security of the temple. Indian temples were very rich that point of time with lots of golds and diamonds which also became one of the major reasons for their destruction in future.  

Well the third layer depicts ornamental flowers which signifies the aesthetics or decoration of the temple.

So these were the three foundation on which the temple was construction .   

"Strength-Security-Beauty" is what the above piece of work means.

There is so much to tell about this temple...

Catch up in the next post 

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