Ruins of an old temple at Bidarahalli

 

Found an old temple at Bidarahalli, Bangalore behind Kashi Vishwanatha temple

 

 

 

Location - https://goo.gl/maps/zaXMn1fWkGL3cdnr9

Visit date - 23-Oct-2021

Bidarahalli is a village about 7k from Krishnaraja Puram(Bangalore), I happen to visit this place with my friend who is an enthusiast in stone inscriptions, we had heard about some stone inscriptions (Shasana) at Bidarahalli but no one had any definitive information about where. We visited the place at about 5 in the evening it was raining and it stopped as we approached the Kashi Vishwanatha temple, this is an ancient temple built in stones and people have spoilt the look by painting the stone walls, I always wonder why people paint the stone walls of ancient temples, just imagine if we paint Hampi temples what a disaster it will be.

I shall write a different blog on Vishwanatha temple and post some amazing picture of the carved pillars and beautiful Nandi, we did find a stone inscription next to the temple.

 

“Found a stone inscription at an unexpected place in the middle of a field. And the sad part was the inscription was inverted.”

We had heard about an old Kalyani (pond) somewhere behind the Vishwanatha temple, we went searching for it behind the temples, there was no proper path there was a small trail surrounded by plants, after a couple of minutes walk we could see a Mantapa at a distance and it seemed to be an old pump house built by the farmers, since there were fields around and also we found few pipes and electric wires inside.

 

After closely looking inside we found a broken GarudaStamba and could identify carving of Hanumantas image, and also after observing the pillarys and the other broken stones around we were convinced that it was a Hanumanta temple.

 

 

We walked around to see if there were anything interesting and to our surprise we found stone slab placed inverted and something carved on it, yes it was an inscription. 

Not sure which language but it appeared to be in Kannada.  

 

We visit this place again when the sky is bright and sunny and capture better pictures.

Will have to see how to get the inscription deciphered :) it was getting dark and had to return and we visited a Hanuman Temple close by it is believed to have installed by Sripadaraya (Lakshminarayana Tirtha c.1422 - c.1480)  around the 15th century this temple has been renovated in 2000 and has lost its old touch, I shall write a different blog about this.

We met few people at the Hanuman temple who happened to be the natives of the village  we were told about the Kalvani which we came looking for, Infact there are 2 Kalyanis in that village and we were taken to one of them and it was quite huge may be about 200X200 feet It was dark by then and could not capture good pictures, I shall visit again and capture it in a different blog