Somnathpur - Keshava temple - An World Heritage Site

Brief Details:

Place: Somnathpur



Known for: Chennakeshava temple built by Hoysalas, An UNESCO World Heritage site for Architecture, specifically for roof carvings, Lathe cut Rock Pillars.



Nearest Town: Srirangapatna



Nearest City: Mysore



Driving Directions: Take the Bangalore - Mysore Highway towards Mysore. 2 kms Before Srirangapatna, ask for directions for Somnathpur(sorry, almost forgot the intermediate villages)



Other nearby Tourist Attractions:

• Shivannasamudra falls,


• Mysore city,


• Brindavan Gardens & Dam,


• Talakadu - pilgrimage,


• GRS Fantasy Park - Theme park.


• Ranganthittu - Bird sanctuary & Boating

View All pics Here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/nandakumar.s/Somnathpur



Camera Details:

Nokia 3230 Mobile phone with 1.3Mega pixel resolution camera



Travel Log:

This was my first trip on my very own car.. :) I am all blushing here though. I have been very much rusty in my driving skills and the plan to go to Somnathpur had formed in my mind only 2 days before.



As per my initial plans, me and my wife were to start pretty early in the morning to fight off the traffic blues, as the road to Mysore was still under construction and is prone to heavy traffic. Anyways I could get up only at 6.30am and by the time, we left our home, it was almost 7.30 am, so the first stop had to be at Shell petrol bunk, for filling up Petrol. After filling up petrol, we proceeded on our way, towards Maddur to have Maddur Vada at Maddur Tiffany's.

Maddur Tiffany is a must-stop for the famous Maddur Vada(available in Karnataka) and their claim is that they are the home of the Maddur Vada. I had to stop for a cup of tea, after the home-made pongal for Breakfast, I was feeling a bit drowsy and chose Maddur tiffany as my stop.



Driving on the Bangalore - Mysore is a different ball-game after driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Bangalore. This road, sets you free after Bidadi, almost after Kengeri, the traffic is less, but after Bidadi, the traffic is greatly reduced, even though you can still come across Trucks, Buses and cars passing you at break-neck speed. As usual, I was a bit cautious as I am new to Highway driving and had preferred to let others go and refrained myself from competing with others on speed, except on a couple of occasions, mostly I had restrained myself in speed.



Also due to a continuous line of villages and town, you can also come across small trucks, tractors, two-wheelers coming on the opposite side of a four-lane highway :( , due to which I reminded myself of my novice-ness in driving and kept myself under limit.



After Maddur, the next stop was upon Nearing Srirangapatna, as I was not sure about the route to take and there were no signboards for pointting to Somnathpur. After checking up with a couple of people, I hit upon a signboard to a Venkatesa perumal temple before a bridge and took the turn. From this turning, somnathpur is almost 25 kms through district roads & village roads.



This road is very scenic and you will be driving next to the cauvery/Bheemeshwari and lush fields on both the sides. Luckily the river was broad and overflowing in the month of August and we had lovely cool climate to make the drive pleasant.



Somnathpur has only one temple and it was built by one of the Hoysala's dandanayaka named "Soma"



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somnathpur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoysala



This is my first visit to a Hoysala temple and one of most awe-inspiring aspect is the intricate details of cravings in stone done on the roof, panels, lathe turned Stone Pillars(cylindrical and with a smooth surface)(made me to wonder how could they have done such things at 1000Ad?)



Guides are available on the temple site and the Archaeology department maintains the temple cleanly so as to retain the tag of "World Heritage" site. Please note that there are no poojas done in the temple and the moola-vikragas are only replicas of the originals. The originals were either taken away by raiders or were destroyed in the subsequent invasions and wars.



Intricate carvings on the outer walls depicts lots of stories from Ramayana and Mahabharatha and my faithful Nokia camera phone has captured them in details. The wall panels are of less than a 3/4th of a feet tall, but have so many intricate stories, that me and wife spent almost 2 hours trying to identify the story and to refresh our mythological knowledges.



Interesting of these carvings is the Kamasutra cravings present only in the right wall on the outside of the entrance(while entering the temple). We found quite a no. of people gaping at these cravings in exotic postures. I had captured them in my other camera, but dont have an image to post here.



Ramayana & Mahabharatha carvings:



Look at the Krishna stealing butter image, You can actually see one of the gopika's showing a surprised look and an older one with an angry look. This is truely great in terms of the actual size of the panel, that you are still able to see so much emotion in the sculptures.


This pic looks like the Pandavas and the Kauravas having a friendly wrestling match, Comments are welcome for changing my identification.


A Shaken picture of Ravana, in all splendour, even though 10heads would probably be an euphemisim for 10 capitals or 10 ministers or 10 heads of army.
>

Baby krishna, sitting on an Araki's thigh, before killing her.


Sita's swayamvara panel, notice the Rama going after the bow.


Killing of Vaali. Note here that Vaali is twice the size of Sugreeya, probably trying to portray that Vaali takes half of the strength of the opponent, but since Rama cannot be depicted properly standing behind a tree, we can see him on the side.

We just could not move away such a wonderful place with so minute depictions of so many stories, somehow on the way back, I realised that I should kept a guide and extracted all the information from him, by pestering on the wall reliefs.

The return trip had us finding our way to Ramapremya swami temple in Chennapatna, and we returned home in the evening by around 7pm.