Shravanabelogola

On the way to Sharavanabelogala.....

We drive across the bridge over this canal. Haven’t come across any such rocky deep canal. It belongs to Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar days, but I seem to have forgotten the name.


Aaaaaahh… And our first glimpse of the hill. Could even see Gomateshwara. The greenery, the hill excited me so much that I ended overtaking the on guy on the bike(captured in the snap below) from right, and while he was approaching in the opposite direction! Arrr, awkward glances, to which I smiled back.


Sharavanabelogala in Hassan district, is an important Jain pilgrim centers. I consists of 2 hills, Vindyagiri and Chandragiri. A 100 steps leads you to the top of Vindyagiri. You are supposed to climb the hill bare foot. For those sensitive foots, they sell socks for Rs 10 per pair, which would last a climb.


Chandragiri and the Kalyani separating both hills, from Vindyagiri.

This one caught my attention on the way.


For the pages : The Vindhyagiri hill is home to a thousand year-old gigantic 17.38 meter high monolithic stone statue of the Bhagavan Gomateshwara Bahubali, considered to be the world's largest, built by Chamundaraya, a general of king Gangaraya. The base of the statue has inscriptions in Kannada, Tamil and the oldest evidence of written Marathi from 981 AD. Every 12 years, thousands of devotees congregate here to perform the Mahamastakabhisheka, a spectacular ceremony where the thousand-year-old statue is anointed with milk, curds, ghee, saffron and sandal-paste.

The first glimpse


And then we enter..........


On either sides of Lord Bahubali, you find these sculptures.


And one of my favorite snaps.


Chandrgiri from atop Vindyagiri


Such mantaps and pillars always interest me.

As we explored this area, we found it was dotted by ‘pairs’ at regular intervals. I think, on falling in love, they gain expertise in lying and in finding secluded places.


He too was visiting the shrine.


After a lunch at the base, we drove towards Melukote. The highlight of the lunch was that it was 5 of us! When me, mom, dad, bro settled down under a tree, we were joined by a cute 45days old calf, which loved curd rice and hadn’t yet learned to eat a Banana peel.

Hosaholalu

The second of October was fortunately a Thursday, the entire team had planned a mass CL on Friday, I had a long weekend at my disposal. We planned to visit Sharavanabelogala this time. Among all the places around Mysore, its tough to accommodate Sharavanabelogala in any of the circuits. So, it had to be Sharavanabelogala and Melukote.


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I had TWO other tasks on agends.

ONE – The roads are good and driving is a pleasure, and I was taking driving lessons for Bro.
TWO – My cousin’s kid wanted me to visit Shravanabelogola and Gommatagiri for long and check if Gomateshwara has started wearing his Pants, at least now.

We had planned to start at 6, but started at 8:30(still good….). I hate paying a visit to the Petrol Bunk early in the morning, on the day of travel. But, it was not a necessity this time. We drove along Mysore –> SH17 –> Pandavapura -->you see a big welcome banner of Shravanabelogola and Gomateshwara -> take a left -> keep driving till KR pet.

The town was full of activity. Due to the lack of sign boards, we stopped-by at the main circle here to inquire, if we were to go straight or take a right to reach Shravanabelogala. But, we were also advised to take a left first(why left now?) visit a Hoysala style temple which is just 2kms away and then proceed to Sharavanabelogala.

And so we did.

HosahoLalu

It can be easily spotted, Hosaholalu is a small village, and it reminded me of Aihole.


Hosaholalu Laxminarayana Temple

This temple is of the trikoota structure with deities being LaxmiNarayana – the main deity, LaxmiNarasimha in the right Sanctum and VenuGopala in the left Sanctum.


The outer walls have carvings of Vishnu and his incarnations. Below it is 6 levels/stripes of intricate carvings with Horse, Peacock, Swan and depictions from Ramayana and Mahabharata. I love watching those monotonous continuous running strips. I could easily get the stories, as Mom and Bro are always good at those, unlike me. In fact even up to 7th std, I found it confusing and difficult to recall if Arjuna belonged to Ramayana or Mahabharata. :-P

Remember reading it somewhere that, ‘The new style of Hoysala temples have 6 strips of carvings running around the temple, while the old style has only 5 strips running’.


I however failed to spot the Hoysala Emblem – Sala fighting with the lion, which I we usually see on the Hoysala style temples.

Side View........
Back View........

It was 11:15 AM and we had't even thought of Breakfast. The Hotels in such villages prepare tasty stuff most times. So, it was for the Dad & Bro to look for a decent, clean place, first taste and then buy take aways’ for us.

We continued towards Sharavanabelogala, searching for a pit stop. It was a hot and we were in search of shaded region. And we happened to drive through a place lined by trees and a fresh water stream flowing parallel to the road! What more could any one ask for. A breakfast to remember …….