A business trip in Bengaluru not only took me back to India but also a perfect chance to visit one more World Heritage Site, the Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas. Originally, I thought I should have free days during weekend, so I already arranged two days tour to visit all three temples that are the component of this UNESCO site, but the business meeting continued to Saturday forced me to change my plan to visit only one temple, the Chennakeshava Temple at Somanathapura which is considered the zenith of Hoysala architecture. It took almost 3.5 hours from Bengaluru’s downtown to reach the small village of Somanathapura. My driver immediately took my colleagues, who were last minute decided to join this tour, and me to the ticket booth to secure digital ticket and requested us to take off our shoes at the temple entrance. I tried to keep my shoes inside my backpack for safety, but the driver insisted that no shoe even inside backpack is allow inside the complex. Then we met a guide who helped us to understand what Hoysala art is.  

The most unique characteristic of this temple is the star shaped layout which reminded me the Church of St. John of Nepomuk at Zelena Hora in Czechia, but this one in India is far more complex with 3 star-shaped temples connecting with each other forming a beautiful and impressive building. We entered the temple hall to see the ceiling which is depicting mango leaves and banana flower in many blooming states since banana flower is considered as holy flower. At the end of the hall has three rooms, each has statue of Vishnu but there is no worshipping in this temple since all statues of gods and goddesses are already damaged so according to Hinduism there is no god in the temple. Then we went outside to see the sculptures that decorated the whole building complex. Since the temple is built by soapstone making Hoysala artists abled to make impressive sculptural details on every statue. Since Hoysala Empire expanded from Central to Southern India, the ruler of Hoysala decided to combine the art of two regions and create new Hoysala styles.

Despite guide explanation but because this was my first time in South India, I could not draw a line of two school of Indian art. However from my experience in Central India, I found the temple of Hoysala different from what I have seen before with more intricate detail of sculptural art which remind me those I saw in Java, Indonesia. One thing for sure that my basic knowledge of Mahabharata, story of Lord Krishna and Pallava brothers or even Ramayana really helped me to understand and appreciate most of depicting motifs. All in all, I considered Chennakeshava Temple at Somanathapura a must see masterpiece of Indian art and architecture that really stunning for its design and impressive craftsmanship of Hoysala artists.