Turuvekere - 16 Aug 2009

Turuvekere is one of the not so popular centers of Hoysala architechture in Karnataka. A visit to this place gives you an opportunity to see the obvious similarities and subtle architectural differences in comparison with the more popular destinations like Belur, Halebid and Somnathpur.

I heard about this place from my friend Chetan. It immediately fired my curiosity and we planned a weekend visit. Turuvekere is about 135 Kms from Bangalore. You can either travel through Bangalore - Tumkur - Turuvekere route or Bangalore - Kunigal - Yediyur - Mayasandra - Turuvekere route. We decided to take the second route through Magadi road and reached Turuvekere in about 3 hours.

Turuvekere has 3 main Hoysala styled temples

1. Gangadhareshwara Temple
the name suggests, this is a Shiva temple and has a huge bull statue.



Apart from this, a stone bell caught our attention. Unfortunately, we did not have the services of a guide to tell us more about these temples.


2. Channakeshava Temple



3. Sri.Moole Shankara temple



Turuvekere is a temple town and apart from the above temples, it has a number of contemporary temples including Sri Lakshmi Beteraya temple.

We heard from the people in Turuvekere about the Channakeshava temple in the neighboring town of Araluguppe and decided to go there. This place looked better maintained by the tourism department than the Turuvekere temples. The temple exteriors were glaringly similar to the temple in Somnathpur.


We saw some very intricately made roof carvings here.


All in all, it was a day well spent.