Most people walk into the courtyard at Belur, photograph the front of the temple and go inside. That is the wrong order, and it costs you most of the building. The Chennakeshava temple stands on a jagati — a terrace about three feet high that follows the star of the shrine and the staggered squares of the hall — and the terrace exists to be walked. The entire outer wall is arranged in horizontal bands to be read at walking pace, from the bottom upwards. Do that circuit first.
- Walk the terrace before entering. Twenty minutes at least.
- Read the wall upward: elephants, lions, scroll, horsemen, small figures, couples, creepers with the Ramayana, daily life, and the Mahabharata on the north.
- The bracket figures are on the pillar capitals under the eaves — 40 carved, 38 survive.
- Then go in: 48 pillars, the central dome, four madanikas with jewellery that moves, and the sanctum.
- Then the four smaller temples in the same courtyard, which nearly everyone misses.
Start at the gate, and look back
You come in from the east under a seven-storey brick gopura. It is not Hoysala work: Vijayanagara put it up in 1397, after a Delhi Sultanate raiding party under a general named Salar burned the earlier wood-and-brick gateway. Two pillars stand in front of you. The Garuda stambha faces the temple with palms together; the Deepa stambha, the lamp pillar, stands on its own weight without mortar and touches the ground at only three of its four corners. Guides slide a sheet of paper under the fourth. The trick is real.
The bands, bottom to top
At knee height, elephants — hundreds of them, no two with the same expression, symbolically carrying the whole building. Above that an empty course, then a cornice with a lion face repeating. Then a band of scroll, then another cornice; at the back of the temple that band becomes a row of horsemen in different riding positions.
The fifth band is where it gets human. Small figures, mostly women, facing outward, with yakshas at intervals turned to face the temple instead; dancers, musicians, and working people with the tools of their trades. Above that, pilasters, with secular figures and couples between them. Then a nature-and-creeper band with the Ramayana threaded through it. Above that, scenes of ordinary life arranged in the Hindu order of kama, artha and dharma: courtship, eroticism, couples with children, trade, festival. Turn the north side and the Mahabharata takes over.
The stone screens, and why the inside is dark
Between the bands and the eaves are twenty perforated stone screens, ten to the north and ten to the south. These are later work, part of the same anxious century that walled the courtyard: when the boundary wall went up under Veera Ballala III, the open hall was closed with these screens for security. Ten carry geometric lattice. Ten carry stories — the Hoysala court with the king, queen, officers and two teachers with their pupils; Vamana, Bali and Trivikrama; Krishna and Kaliya; the churning of the ocean; Ranganatha asleep on the serpent; Hanuman and Garuda quarrelling over a Shiva linga.
They also turned a naturally lit interior into a dark one. That is why the hall has to be lit for you, and why a small torch is one of the most useful things you can carry into this building.
The bracket figures
On the capitals of the pillars under the eaves are the madanakai or salabhanjika — the figures Belur is famous for. Forty were carved; thirty-eight survive, in good or damaged condition. Two are Durga. Three are huntresses with bows. The rest are dancers holding positions out of the Natya Shastra, musicians, women dressing or making up, a woman with a parrot on her hand. The celebrated one is the Darpana Sundari, the lady with the mirror.
Look for the jokes while you are up there. One figure stands under a fruit tree with a fly on the fruit and a lizard on the branch above, gathering itself. Another panel runs an eagle attacking a sarabha attacking a lion pouncing on an elephant seizing a snake swallowing a rat, with a sage watching the whole chain.
Inside: the hall
The navaranga at Belur is the largest hall in any Hoysala temple — sixty bays, forty-eight pillars. All but four were turned on a lathe and no two are alike; the four exceptions were hand-cut and inserted in 1381, under Vijayanagara, to hold up a damaged structure. The Narasimha pillar is carved with miniatures from foot to capital and is said to have once turned on its base. The Mohini pillar carries eight bands, including the ten avatars of Vishnu and the guardians of the eight directions. Somewhere on one of these pillars a carver left a patch deliberately blank, as a challenge to anyone who thought they could do better.
Stand under the centre. The dome above is about ten feet across and six deep, with a lotus bud at the apex carrying Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and the Ramayana running round its base. On the capitals of the four pillars beneath it are four more madanikas, and on these the necklaces and bracelets are cut free of the stone and actually move.
The sanctum
Past a doorway flanked by Jaya and Vijaya, with twelfth-century musicians carved below them, is the garbha griha. Inside is Vijayanarayana — about six feet high on a three-foot pedestal, four arms, chakra and conch in the upper pair, mace and lotus in the lower, and the ten avatars carved cyclically around the halo behind him. He is dressed, garlanded and worshipped while you are standing there. This is not a museum piece.
And then the four everyone walks past
The courtyard holds more than the main temple. Kappe Chennigaraya to the south, built by the queen at the same time as the great one. Viranarayana to the west, small and complete, with 59 large reliefs. The Soumyanayaki shrine to the south-west, whose tower is said to be a miniature of the great tower the main temple has lost. The Andal or Ranganayaki shrine to the north-west, with 31 large images on its outer wall. And in the north-east corner, the stepped tank cut in 1175, with two stone elephants at the edge.
When Belur and Halebidu are done, the one to keep for another day is Amruthapura, a hundred kilometres north — the same dynasty, the same century, panels large enough to read standing up, and nobody in the courtyard.
Frequently asked questions
In what order should I see the Chennakeshava temple at Belur?
Terrace first, going round the outside and reading the wall bands from the bottom up; then the bracket figures under the eaves; then inside for the pillars, the central dome and the sanctum; then the four smaller temples in the same courtyard. Most visitors do it in exactly the opposite order and miss the outer wall entirely.
How many bracket figures are there at Belur?
Forty were carved and thirty-eight survive, on the pillar capitals under the eaves. Two are Durga, three are huntresses with bows, and the rest are dancers, musicians and women at their toilet. Four more stand on the pillar capitals inside the hall, beneath the central dome.
Why does the temple have no tower?
It had one, repeatedly. The shikhara over the sanctum was damaged, rebuilt and gold-plated more than once, and in the late nineteenth century what was left of it was taken down to save the levels underneath rather than risk it coming through the roof. It was never replaced.
Do I need a guide?
Yes, in practice. The hall is dark behind its stone screens and most of what makes the building famous is too high or too small to read unaided. Government-approved guides work at the gate; Wikivoyage puts the rate at ₹125–250 and also warns that some of what you will be told is embroidery. Both things are true.