Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c12.8

c12.8

Of course no single date can be given for the Hoysalēśvara, which was more like a national monument,—under construction for a long period, and never completed. It is a double temple, and Fergusson says was left unfinished, being interrupted by the Muhammadan conquest, after the works had been in progress for eighty-six years; but no authority is given for this statement. Of the positive dates obtained from inscriptions, the carving over the southern doorway is stated (Bl 239) to have been executed for the sculptor of Pratāpa-Nārasimha or Nārasimha I. This indicates that the fabric of the building was then complete, say in 1141 or somewhat later. Of the votive offerings inscribed on the inner walls, the earliest appears to be Bl 105, in which the double temple, dedicated to Hoysaleśvara and Panchikeśvara, is fully recognised, and grants are made for the two gods by the sēnabhōva of the senior queen Kētala-Dēvī. Now, she was the queen of Ballāla II, and is mentioned in 1177 (Hn 54). The temple was thus begun after the one at Bēlūr, and the body of the building completed in the time of Nārasimha I. The sculpture of the exterior walls was no doubt carried on during the subsequent reign of Ballāla II, when decorative features were also added to the Bēlūr temple (Bl 72). There is a story, indeed, that the pierced medallions, like those at Bēlūr, which have evidently been removed from their brackets on the outer pillars, were taken away at the end of the eighteenth century by Count de Lally, the French ally of Haidar Ali, (or perhaps by the younger Lally), and that he sent a sum of money from France as compensation to the temple. The stoppage of work on the building was probably due to the Sēuna invasions in the reigns of Nārasimha II and Sōmēśvara, followed by the removal of the royal residence by the latter in about 1236 to Kannanūr, near Trichinopoly. But the beautiful and completed Sōmanāthpur temple was built after this, in the reign of Nārasimha III. It is a triple temple, and has often furnished a model for silver or gold caskets.