Day trip from Bengaluru to Melukote-Nagamangala-Basaralu-Kere Thonnur

My niece’s recommendation to visit Melukote temple triggered me to google Mandya district. I searched for less travelled sort of destinations in & around Mandya as we had already seen more well known attractions like Srirangapattana, Shivanasamudra & others. Based on the info gathered, Viji & I decided on a day trip to Mandya to cover some of the Hoysala dynasty temples from 12th century AD: Melukote-Nagamangala-Basaralu & Kere Thonnur

Booked taxi from our usual reliable taxi service (Kiran Travels/Kiran Coffee works) a stone throw from my house in NR Colony & started off the next day at 6:50AM, Nov7th. The drive was smooth with very little traffic. Had great bfast (Kotte Kadabu) at Kamath Yatrinivas near Ramanagara & headed straight to Melukote. 

Farm on the way

Drive was nice with beautiful shades of green fields on either side, I guess the fields were showing off the effect of good monsoon. By the time we reached Melukote it was around 10:15AM(3hrs drive – 140 Km from Bengaluru, 30 km from Mandya)

Melukote

This is a 1000+yrs old town and is built on rocky hills (granite rocks) of Yaadavagiri overlooking the Cauvery valley. Few attractions in Melukore are Cheluvanarayana swamy temple, Kalyani, Hill temple of Lord Yoga Narasimha, Raya Gopura, Akka Thangi Kola, Academy of Sanskrit Research & the residence of Pu ti Narasimhachar (famous Kannada literary figure)

Yoga Narasimha Temple

First we visited the Yoga Narasimha temple on top of the hill , you can either walk up the steps from the bottom of the hill or take the vehicle up to where it can go (midpoint) and then walk up. We walked up from mid point, it had 225 steps. Temple is nice & yet could have been maintained better. It has simple & nice old architecture, pillars are plain with no carvings, the idol is beautiful. Thankfully there was hardly any people…view of Melukote town from here is picturesque. 

View of Melukote from hill top

Next, we headed towards Kalyani /Pushkarani – Nice & big! Apparently it is in lot of movies & a very popular Kalyani & most photographed in Karnataka. It has a very well carved Mantapa. 

Kalyani with a view of Narasimha temple

After spending sometime here, we went to the famous Cheluanarayana swamy temple. Narayana is really cheluva here & so are the rest of the idols in this temple complex, all of the temple jewellery here are from Mysore Wodeyar family. There are few marvelous carved pillars inside the courtyard. Temple has more religious significance than architectural beauty that we usually see in Hoysala temples. 

Cheluvanarayana swamy temple

Temple Corridor 

The priests here are Tamilians and the story goes like this, early in the 12th century the famous Srivaishnava saint Sri Ramanujacharya, who hailed from Tamil Nadu stayed at Melukote for about 12 years. It had thus become a prominent centre of the Srivaishnava sect of Brahmins, who obtained this from the Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana. This place is often known as Badrinath of the South. We were hoping to get some prasada (famous Melukote Puliyogare and we shamelessly asked as well :-) One of the priest said, it is delayed today due to some special pooja at the Ramanujacharya temple :-(

Raya Gopura

We proceed towards Raya Gopura, which is a very interesting incomplete structure leading to the hill. It has four tall pillars and has no tower above it, apparently the king ordered this to be built overnight & since it could not be finished by morning it was never completed. 

Akka Thangi Kola

Next to this is sisters' pond (Akka Thangi Kola), One has salt water and one sweet (of course Thangi kola is sweet :-)). This is well maintained! Thumbs up to the watchman here. There is also an Anjaneya temple behind this pond.
I understand there is paid toilet facility here which is clean.

Sanskrit Research Center

We went to Sanskrit Research Center. Areas of research here are in Upanishads & Vishitadhvaitha. Their library has thousands of manuscripts and about 30,000 books in Sanskrit, Kannada & Tamil.There are few cottages if one prefers to stay overnight. We went to one of the cottage mainly to use it for bio break… it was basic but clean. Most of the cottages looked occupied by foreigners. By now it was 12:30 and we were hungry. Went towards the temple street looking for “Subbanna Mess a Brahmin restaurant” which I had read about from other bloggers. Thumbs up for the puliyogare and Bella Pongal….they were Delicious! We got some packed for our night dinner as well and bought puliyogare gojju from them.

After a good lunch, went to Pu Ti Na’s house, a very humble cute house that has all the awards he has won and some of his personal items.

Nagamangala

Melukote to Nagamangala is about 30km & the drive was good with sugarcane fields on both sides. The Saumya Keshava temple is like any other temple from outside. Unfortunately temple street starts at the front door itself in other words, what looks like once was the temple grounds, now is occupied by buildings like school & shops. Since it was lunch hour for children, they were running all around including jumping up and down the garuda gamba outside the temple:-( But, once inside the temple complex, it is very different all together. 

saumya keshava temple

corridar

Saumya Keshava is exactly like his name “Calm & serene”. Since Keshava has a “Shanka” in his right hand as opposed to “Chakra” hence the name Sowmya Keshava & this is very rare. Pillars and the Mandala on the center ceiling is very well carved & beautiful . Adhi Shesha is sitting in Mandala akara. We were told you will not find the Adhi Shesha Sitting in Mandala akara on top of mantapa anywhere else. Adhi Shesha is sitting on a big Shanku which appears as if it is placed on heap of 108 Shanku. This is a unique feature here. The temple guide compared this temple to Kukke Subramanya as many people come to clear their naga dosha  The walk around the courtyard inside the temple was very peaceful and clean. It had the perfect air of a very old temple. 

From here we started towards Basaralu sign but everyone who claimed to know the area kept telling us there are NO OLD temples in Basaralu. Our driver also misled us by calling his friend from Basaralu and he said no old temples there and he said that the info we have is wrong & it must be a different Basaralu town. Since there was no mobile signal to download the map or use navigation here… we decided to proceed first to Tonnur Lake instead.

Kere Thonnur

Thonnur is located at the southern foot of the Yadugiri hills. When Musilms invaded Melukote in 14th century, this is where the Hoysala king retired. A beautiful and huge fresh water lake surrounded by hillocks. Tonnur lake is a man made water barrage across Yadavanadi connecting two rocky hills and built 1000 years ago. It was called as Tirumala Sagara (lake of the sacred hills) & Tipu sultan called it "Moti Talab" (lake of pearls). One can also climb the rocks if you have time & energy. There is also a small sand beach area where you can have picnic but no shade.
I had read there is boating, but when we went they had stopped since Monsoon… sometimes adventure clubs have overnight camping here. Well, not sure if it is these campers or local folks who used this as a picnic spot...have made a mess and filled every corner with plastics.

Nambi Narayana temple

This place also hosts few heritage temples from Hoysala dynasty. Since it was afternoon 2:30pm they were all closed. We just saw one temple though the garbagudi was closed. We were told that we can walk to the poojari/priest residence and ask him to open but we did not. The Nambi Narayana temple we saw is 900+ yrs old and very nice. The history goes “Nambhi Narayana Temple: Initially was a Jain basadi, it was transformed into a Vishnu temple once Ramanujacharya arrived in the Hoysala Kingdom. He is believed to have personally installed the idol of Narayana in the temple”

Basaralu

Yuppiee!!! By now my cell phone signal was working and I retrieved info on Mallikarjuna temple in Basaralu as well as the driving direction…we headed back towards Nagamangala as Basaralu is between Mandya and Nagamangala.
Basaralu is about 20 km from Mandya & 17 km from Nagamangala. The main attraction of Basaralu is the Mallikarjuna temple of Hoysala architecture. It is built by Harihara Dandanayaka. First expression as our car pulled towards this hidden temple complex was a big WOW!!!!!!

Mallikarjuna Temple Entrance

Temple carvings

It is just wonderful with awesome carvings (very similar to Halebedu but smaller in size). The temple was locked but the watchman/security opened the door and showed us the inside which was just spectacular and full of intricate carvings. Photography is not allowed inside,  It has a Shiva Linga & all the idols were so pretty and it has a beautiful Nandhi and many carved mandalas in the ceiling. Outside of this temple was ruined during Muslim invasion in 14th century. Good news is that Archeology department is working on the restoration and the plan is to rework the structure as currently it is tilted in many areas. 

More carvings

Lady holding a handbag?

It was sad to see most of the faces in the carvings outside the temple are disfigured. The security guy said only few visitors to this temple & mostly people who have seen this on internet. So, we told our driver to ensure he brings visitors from Bangalore who come to Melukote.By now it was 5:20pm…it was time to leave.  On the way to mandya we got to see this cute Devi procession with painted bullock carts

Painted bullock cart

Devi

Reached home by 8:00PM…What a day!!! 13hrs & 400km…I think if we had the route plan ahead of time, we could have avoided time spent driving that extra 50km or so & covered Panchakuta Basadi (from 10th century AD) at Kambadahalli instead.Well, there is always a next time.

A very cool trip!Highly recommend this day trip from Bengaluru. Lesson learnt is that to ensure you have the route map if you travel to less known temples & don't totally rely on locals or mobile signal :-)