By Shobha Rao Smilemaker

Mar 14: We drove all the way from Shimoga to visit the ancient Amruteshvara temple at Amruthapura, built around 1000 years ago during the Hoysala dynasty. What caught my attention first was it's single shrine which is called the ekakuta design.. there were carved demon faces, that seemed to be staring at us from this single tower called the Shikara.

We entered the first open hall with its black lathe pillars between 29 bays, that seemed to be shining even after so many centuries.

After that was a closed hall, that connected us to the main sanctum. The priest told us that the linga of the main idol was brought around 900 years ago all the way from Nepal. The lamp that was nearby, was called akanda deepa as it had been burning continuously since the last 200 years! The locals revere the immense power of this God to grant all wishes!

I noticed that the dome shaped ceiling in all the halls and the side porches had artistic carvings of floral designs.

We then visited another smaller shrine besides the main shrine and I sat in silence there, again admiring the main decorative tower and another smaller tower with the famous 'Hoy-sala' emblem of a warrier(Sala) striking( Hoy) a lion.

Outside was a stone structure with some ancient inscriptions written in our Kannada language. The generic look at the outer wall carvings will show decorative swirls, designs, and Hindu deities along the exterior of the Amrutesvara temple, Even the windows had decorative perforated artistic carvings around them.

We decided to walk slowly and examine the 140 panel carvings on the outer wall in detail. It was like a guessing game as we tried to associate these depictions with our own knowledge of Hindu epics.

We recognized the Ramayana story, depicted in 70 panels as we walked in an anticlockwise direction. On the opposite side there were about 25 panels where we easily recognized the life of Lord Krishna, this time in the clockwise direction. Besides there were 45 panels where we tried to decipher scenes from the Mahabharata.

As we left the place with a smile, I was so grateful to discover such hidden gems of India that depict our rich ancient culture.

Shobha Rao Smilemaker has a vision of living in a world where people use their ability to find and make smiles in any situation. She is a lawyer by qualification, a soft skills trainer by passion, a motivational speaker, a freelance journalist, a bestselling author, an avid traveler and founder of 'Smilemakers Trainings'. She can be contacted at www.shobhasmilemaker.com.