The Bucheshwara temple at Koravangla is a lesser known Hoysala temple (Wiki page). Situated about 12 KM from Hassan, and over 900 years old, the temple is at the edge of the Koravangla village. This is a monument of national importance under ASI, and is open from sunrise time to sunset time. Below is the google map directions from Hassan.
The road to take from Hassan is the highway to Arsikere. After getting off the highway (a right turn) and beyond a railway crossing, the surroundings were lush green in this monsoon season. Nearing Koravangla, the rains started to come down heavily and even though we reached the temple gate, we had to sit inside the car and wait for the rains to subside. It was already late evening and it was starting to get dark – we had all but given up hopes of exploring the temple that day. However, the rains lessened to a slight drizzle and we were able to get inside the temple complex.
The temple is in a “DvikooTa” structure – two shrines facing each other. One shrine has a form of Shiva as the deity (Bucheshwara) and the other has Surya. A local priest carries out pooja every morning. Being a lesser known temple, not many tourists throng this place and its a good thing to leisurely explore the place and take photographs without worrying about people spoiling the frame. This makes it a good offbeat destination for history/architecture/photography enthusiasts.
It got dark pretty fast and we were not satisfied with the very less time we got to spend there . We came back next day early morning for one more round of exploration. Staying at Hassan makes it easy to visit this temple – its just a half-hour drive from Hassan. Below are a few images from our two visits to this temple.
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