The Virupaksha Temple Complex is spread over a large area

A Guide and Tourist at  Sacred Center of Hampi Temple

The sacred center of Hampi temple is where most of the religious and tourist action happens. Right in the middle of a Bazaar (crafts village like a flea market) you can see the main Virupaksha temple from miles. After passing through the bazaar, dodging the aggressive vendors trying to sell you things and more aggressive beggars trying to sell you heaven in both present and afterlife, you reach the sacred center. There is a small camera fee you need to pay to take your camera with you, no money for cell phone cameras! Another Indian rule that I have never been able to comprehend, in this time and age of ubiquitous cell phone cameras, why somebody carrying a digital camera has to pay a fee when the guy next to you is happily clicking pictures from his cell phone.

The Sculpture of Warrior Goddess at Hampi Temple

The temple is devoted to Shiva and has many small shrines inside the complex in typical south Indian style of temples with each shrine dedicated to one of the gods, anybody with knowledge of Indian mythology will know that we have no dearth of gods. We have one god for everything right from creating the universe as Brahma to nurturing it as Vishnu and finally to destroy it as Shiva, only to recreate a better world once again. I really liked a small shrine with three Nandi idols (Nandi =A sacred bull who is used by Shiva to ride), adoringly looking at the deity of the main temple. I just loved the concept of Nandi idol in front of the gods so that they can have his darshan (holy view) eternally. This reminded me of Krishna Deva Raya’s idol at Tirupathi in front of lord Venkateshwara. What appears to me is that at some stage there was a shift from Shiva worship to Vishnu as a lot of shrines are dedicated to either Vishnu or one of his incarnations.

Virupaksha Temple complex in Hampi

Sacred Center Seen From Hill Top

 Another attraction of the temple is the hollow pillars that resonate with the sound of drums if you tap on them. It seems the main hall at one time also had performances by musicians and dancers in honor of the gods.

Elephant At Sacred Center of Hampi Temple

Tourists at Sacred Center of Hampi

One side of the courtyard there is an abandoned Stable where horses and elephants used to live at one point in time, but today only one young Elephant called Laxmi lives with her mahout there. Luxmi is trained to pick rupees and coins from the hands of visitors and touch them with her trunk to offer the blessings on behalf of the gods; well she is minting money for her mahout. I hope he takes good care of her. Each one of us got our share of blessings from the resident pachyderm in exchange of Rs 10 each.

The ancient Temple of Hampi

Every single stone in the temple narrates a story from Indian mythology. You actually need many days if you want to study and photograph even the top 1% of the stones. Even the roof at some point in time would have been very beautiful as even today one can see portions of intricate paintings done on the roof. Remember these temples are more than 1000 years old which makes work of Michelangelo pretty modern.

Sunset from Ruins of Hampi

 

Time Stands Still In Hampi

Other blog posts in the Visit to Hampi Series