Yesterday I took my first day trip out of Mysore. I met some girls who had hired a driver to go to Melukote (Melkote), the location of some Hindu (? - still trying to grasp the vast history here) temples, about 50km away.
The main temple is a large square building, dedicated to Lord Cheluva Narayana Swamy or Tirunarayana.
The carvings on the temple was incredible...just so ornate.
We climbed up many stairs to the beautiful temple dedicated to Lord Yoga Narasimha.
The view was gorgeous and walking barefoot on the stairs just gave me a sense of how old and worn everything was. I do not understand any of the religious aspects of the temple, but people were going inside to pay respects to the priests (photography not allowed inside temples!).
The top of the temple
Here I am in a little alcove.
Behind me is a carving of some feet. Maybe in reference to a god?
The pool at the base of the temples is called Kalyani or Pushkarani pondI can tell these day trips are going to require multiple posts, due to the amount of photos I have as well as the length of time the photos take to upload to Flickr. I want to blog in real time as much as technology allows me to, but we'll have to see...
5 comments:
Wow! Wow! Wow!
If I remember, the carved footprints are where you receive prasad(?) from the local deity...there are all these complicated rules about touching feet and caste...if you are low caste and you touch someone with your feet it's a grave insult, traditionally, and if you touch the feet of the god you get a little bit of the god's nature on you. So it's either a great honor, or cooties, depending on the relationship of touch-er and touch-ee.
That carving is beautiful.
The temple is sooo beautiful. I can't imagine what it is like to be there.
they are beautiful.....
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