Virupaksha Temple, Hampi
विरूपाक्ष मंदिर, हम्पी
📍 Hampi, Vijayanagara district, Karnataka
🛕 Online darshan inside this temple: coming soon
On the banks of the Tungabhadra, Virupaksha has been worshipped since about the 7th century. It is the living heart of Hampi, the ruined Vijayanagara capital, and its 50 m gopuram rises over a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
तुंगभद्रा तट पर लगभग 7वीं सदी से पूजित विरूपाक्ष — विजयनगर की राजधानी हम्पी का हृदय और यूनेस्को विश्व धरोहर।
इतिहास History
Worship here goes back to about the 7th century, inscriptions name Shiva at the site in the 9th and 10th centuries, and the Chalukya and Hoysala kings added to the shrine. Under the Vijayanagara Empire the small temple grew into a great complex, much of it built by Lakkana Dandesha, a chieftain of Deva Raya II. Krishnadevaraya added the ornate central hall in 1510 to mark his accession, along with a gateway tower.
When Hampi was sacked in 1565 and the city abandoned, worship at Virupaksha carried on, and it remains the one temple of the old capital in daily use. Its gateway towers were repaired in the early 19th century. Since 1986 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Group of Monuments at Hampi.
कथा The legend
Hampi takes its name from Pampa, a form of Parvati. She did penance on Hemakuta hill above the temple to win the ascetic Shiva, who at last accepted her and became Pampapati, 'husband of Pampa'. The river beside them was called Pampa, today's Tungabhadra, and local tradition holds that the boulder-strewn hills around are Kishkindha, where Rama and Lakshmana met Hanuman and Sugriva.
दर्शनीय Don’t miss
- The nine-tiered eastern gopuram, about 50 m high
- Krishnadevaraya's pillared hall and its painted ceilings
- A small opening that casts an upside-down image of the gopuram on an inner wall, like a pinhole camera
- The shrines of Pampa Devi and Bhuvaneshwari beside the sanctum
- Hemakuta hill's early temples, and the old Hampi Bazaar in front
उत्सव Festivals
मंदिर दर्शन Temple story
The secrets of Virupaksha, from our YouTube series.
▶ Watch all 30 Temple Stories on YouTubePhoto: iMahesh · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons