Went to Belur and Sravanabelagola last month on the second day of the visit to Chikmaglur. The first day we visited Mullayanagiri and Bababudangiri. The initial plan was for another trek on the second day also, but since we had faced some treacherous conditions on the first day, we decided to take it easy on the second. So, we decided to visit the temples Belur and Sravanabelagola.
Belur is in Hassan district and is around 200kms from Bangalore. The road is pretty good and the drive shouldn’t take longer than 4 hours. The temple is really beautiful and it is must see if you are interested in architecture and sculptures. I am not going to describe the temple as it would be gross injustice for my writing skills to describe something really beautiful. So, I am just going to let the pictures do the talking. Thanks to Sindhu for these pictures.
Most of these statues are 3 dimensional. You can see the height and width and also feel the depth as they aren’t attached to the walls. You can actually put your fingers behind some of the statues. Nearly all the statues are locked to their places.
The Lion is the symbol of the Hoysala dynasty which built the temples at Belur, Halebid and Somnathpur.
Sravanabelagola
The Gomateshwar is around 80kms from Belur and we reached this place around 3:30pm. The temple is on top of a hill and the climb is about 600steps. It shouldn’t take more than 30mins if you are reasonably fit. This place is around 160kms from Bangalore. Some pictures:
Gomateshwar (The statue is around 50ft high)
Kalyani (pushkarini) is see in this picture
