Today, Friday, 20th October we (our family consisting of us husband and wife, son and daughter in law, grandson and our sister in law) travelled to the famous Bhoga Nandeeshwara Temple, near Nandi Hills, Karnataka. This beautiful temple of Lord Shiva, dates back to the early 9th century and comes under the the protection of Archeological Survey of India as of national importance. The earliest references of construction dated back to 806 c and later the temple came under the patronage of Ganga dynasty, the Chola Dynasty, the Hoysala and Vijayanagara Empires.
One of the priests in the temple said that this is only place where importance to two forms of Lord Shiva - Arunchaleswara and Bhoga Nandeeshwara- are given. The Arunchaleswara shrine is said to have been built by the Ganga dynasty (to the south) while the Bhoga Nandeeshwara shrine is built by the Cholas (to the north). There is also the Uma Maheswara shrine said to have been built during the post Vijayangara rule. The beautiful and well carved dieties (and sages) and the beautiful Maha Mantapa are outstanding examples of the great mastery our ancients had over creating masterpieces of sculptures and carvings (with minimal tools at their disposal).
We left home in our son's beautiful Honda City car and stopped at Sri Krishna restaurant where we had a delicious breakfast and drove straight to the temple complex of two large shrines of Arunachaleswara and Bhoga Nandeeshwara. We spent more than two hours in the beautiful place where we could identify Hoysala architecture of ornate black stone pillars that had reliefs depicting lord Shiva and Parvati, Brahma and Saraswati, Vishnu and Lakshmi, Agni and Swaha Devi and beautiful creepers and birds.
We also spent quite some time at the beautifully built Kalyani, said to be a Vijyangara era - King Krishnadevaraya's contribution to the temple complex. Sadly, this scribe felt the maintenance of the water tank was not good and being a national monument the ASI could take better care of the cleanliness and other aspects of not only the Kalyani but the entire complex.
The journey (of a little more than one and a half hours from our place) was good (via International Airport Road). On the way back we stopped for lunch at another nice restaurant Nanda Gokula. We were back around 3 pm. On a personal level we tried to understand the Vastu aspects of this historical temple complex.
We did enjoy this visit to the 1200 year old temple complex and recommend all of you to visit this beautiful complex which has mantaps for conducting marriage ceremonies too. Please do visit. If you are planning your son's or daughter's marriage, this is indeed a very special place for it.
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