Lakshminarayana Temple is a 13th century ancient Hindu temple with Hoysala architecture located in the town of Hosholalu in Krishnarajpet taluk of Mandya district of Karnataka state. Dedicated to Lord Vishnu, this temple was built in 1250 C.E by King Vira Someswara of the Hoysala Empire.
Lakshminarayana Temple is about 160 km from Bangalore. It is about 60 km from Mandya city and 56 km from Mysore city. It is only 38 km from Srirangapatna railway station and 3 km from KR Pete.
The temple is open from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm and from 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm.
The dating of the temple is based on the sculptures and architectural style. It bears a close resemblance to the contemporary Hoysala monuments at Javagal, Nuggehalli and Somanathapura.
The temple is a three-shrine temple with only Narayana as the central shrine and a tower at the top. The two side temples are dedicated to Gudi Venugopala in the south and Gudi in the north to Lakshmi Narasimha.
This three-shrine monument is notable for its finely carved plinth with panels from Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana. It has the most beautifully decorated Hoysala sukanasa, the jewel-like carvings on the interior of the temple hall are also noteworthy. The Vishnu temple illustrates the later stage of Hoysala architecture with a square plan and a four-storied vesara vimana. It is constructed using soapstone.
The temple is built on a platform with decorative elephants at the corners. This makes the temple 4.5 feet high. It extends beyond the temple on all sides, thus providing a comprehensive circumnavigation. The side shrines are square in construction with five projections and have no special features. The central shrine is well decorated and its tower has a sukanasi which is actually a lower tower above the mandapa, which connects to the kosha hall containing the image of the deity. Sukanasi looks like an extension of the main tower above the central shrine.
Between the two roofs are ornamental miniature towers on pilasters, beneath a second projecting roof with carvings of Hindu deities and their attendants painted on the wall. The temple houses over one hundred and twenty works of art, mostly related to the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism. Twenty-four sculptures of Vishnu show him holding his four hands – conch, wheel, lotus and mace – in all possible permutations. The temple also contains Saiva and Shakti religious plaques, such as Mahisasuramardini bearing a seal on a buffalo-demon. Below the panel of deities are six decorative rectangular moldings of equal width around the temple at the top of the wall.
The first stage depicts birds, the second stage depicts a mythological deity, the third stage narrates the legends of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana in the circumambulation of devotees. The fourth stage has scrolls of leaves, the fifth and sixth stages have processions of horses and elephants respectively. The famous war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas vividly describes the death of many heroes.
