29th April 2012
Nuggehalli is a small village
near Hassan about 20 km from National Highway 48. In the village are two
beautiful Hoysala Temples, Sadashiva and Lakshmi Narashima Temple. Built during
13th century, these Temples are still in good shape and are well
maintained.
Since the Temples were well known
I expected to find them easily. But labyrinth and narrow roads of Nuggehalli
confused me a lot. People were giving contradicting directions. I lost my
patience when one person directed me to a normal small Temple. He seemed to be
oblivious of existence of the Temple in his own village. He was extremely embarrassed
when I blasted him for the same. And then he gives proper directions!!
The first Temple we saw was
Sadashiva Temple. Unlike other Temples of Hoysala regime, Sadashiva Temple
stands immediately next to the road with a huge door. The walls and roof at the
front portion of the Temple do not have any sculptural decoration. It is not
clear whether they were destroyed or original design.
Some walls have windows carved
out of stone. The garbagruha houses a huge Shiva linga. Since it was looked we
could not get a chance to look into that.
To get a complete view of the
Temple, one needs to go to the back.
Lakshmi Narashima Temple is just
5 minutes walk from Sadashiva Temple. This Temple is visited by lot of people (Especially
Vaishnavas) as the deity is worshipped.
The entrance of the Temple is not
impressive.
Like the other Temple, a large
mantapa is present at the entrance of the Temple. This trikuta Temple has three
forms of Vishnu Venugopala, Keshava and Lakshmi Narasimha.
The real beauty of the Temple is in
the sculptures outside. The Temple lies on a raised platform of about 4 ft high
followed by six horizontal sections consisting of Elephants, horses, creepers, mythological,
imaginary beasts and swans.
The walls of the Temple consist
of various images of Gods.
A beautiful Temple in general.
How to reach Nuggehalli:
If you are coming from Bengaluru,
take right turn after Hirisave. The Village is about 20km from deviation. From
Hassan, one needs to take left turn after Channaraya Patna and continue for 20km
to reach the village.