Where it all began.
Centuries ago, Once upon a time, during the gurukul period there lived a young man called sala in the malnad region stayed at the Gurukul in the vicinity of the Vasantika temple at Angadi. The gurukul was surrounded by thick forests of Malnad. It so happened that one day during their prayers with his guru Sudattamuni, A vicious tiger approached them. Sudattamuni alerted by his instincts Guru throws sala a rod and says "Poy Sala" (Strike Sala). Sala with all his strength took one blow at the tiger killing it and immortalizing both him and the beast. The guru impressed by his might tells sala to rule over malnad regions. His descendants The Hoysalas turned this into their emblem. They later ruled over, what's now known as Karnataka and tamilnadu until the year 1343.
During their rule they constructed over 1500 temples spread across 943 different provinces which are till date known for marvellous architecture and its immense effort to protect Indian history. In each one of their temple on either side of the main doorway leading to the sanctum you find these marvelous sculptures. Unfortunately less than a 100 of these shrines barely survived the invasions lead by the Cholas and the Mughal rulers during the later years.
Among these temples the one in belur is the most spectacular one, said to have commissioned by Bittedeva in the year 1110 CE but certain evidences prove that its much older. What ever maybe its age the work involved to carve this temple still cannot be achieved by modern tools for construction and sculpting making this a true gem for those who seek mysteries.
We might probably take another thousand years to decode all the inscriptions and crack the code involved in their architecture and sculpting keeping in mind that most of them are ruined. Knowing that this knowledge is on the blink of extension I write to you this post letting you know of its true value.
Hoysalas may not have been as great as Alexander or as ruthless as Hitler from our history, but they sure made their way to the history books with all their remarkable creations. Everyone wants to be remembered for all of time, the Hoysalas choose the most beautiful path to it.
If you enjoyed reading this post, Do hit the resteem button and leave an upvote to show your support. Do not forget to visit this place when you are in India.
Have a great day. Thank you for reading.