Venugopal Swami Temple

"Venugopal Swami Temple"

The first place you will encounter is a large village called Kannambadi. Right in the middle of this village is a sprawling ancient temple dated of 12th century. Close to it , towards the riverside is the temple of Kalamma, a local folk deity. Further towards the riverside is the Sri Kenneshawara Swamy temple.Before this happened, the then king of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodyar IV ordered construction of a new village for the residents of Kannambadi. The new village was aptly named Hosakannambadi ( the New Kannambadi).

The original Kannambadi village along with its ancient temples gone submerged for ever.

During the summer months of the drought prone years, the water level of KRS dips, and the temple resurfaces. According to the local tradition the resurfacing of the otherwise buried temple sounds the approach of bad luck. True. Scarcity of water looming large on an agrarian community is no a welcome thing.

This hide and seek of the temple has been going for more than seven decades with mixed emotions – the happiness of seeing the temple, and the subtle warning of the looming drought.

Around the year 2004 a mammoth work started to replant the temple, thanks to an entrepreneur philanthropist. Originally the new location planned was at Maduvana, a locality close to the Mysore city center. But due to the sensitivity of the Hosakannambadi villagers, a new site was found close to the village.

It was an unusual task hitherto undertaken in this part of the country. The idea was to transplant the temple, stone by stone, from its original place to the new location.And everything has to be faithfully re-created as the original. Tens of thousands of photographs where taken and each stones where marked before the dismantling operations started. In short all the physical aspects of the temple were digitized for later use when the re-installation start.When you see the serenely of this chosen place, you’ll realize that there could be no better places than this to relocate this majestic structure.

Experts in temple construction were roped in, especially from Tamilnadu. Digitizing the details and marking of each stones where mammoth task. And it as to be done during the short period during the drought season when water recede from the temple location. So was dismantling quickly and orderly transporting the stone blocks to the new location.

Imagine doing this on 300 feet by 180 feet ( about 92 by 55 meters) temple complex siting on a riverbed.That included its massive compound walls.

What will surprise you when you visit the Venugopalswamy Temple is its finish. Naturally you would be expecting the temple should look old. No, it looks as a newly finished large temple. That is because the surface of every stone is re-dressed by removing a layer of the flaky surface.

Seven decade of submersion has done no damage to the temple. The only thing that gone bad was the surface appearance of the stones. That’s solved by this polishing operation. Still in many areas of the temple you can see the unfinished original surface of the stones. That remains as a good glimpse to its past!

The temple is oriented in an east-west axis with its main entrance at the east, facing the reservoir.

What you first see of the temple is its massive compound wall, called parakara. This is made of giant granite blocks on one over the other without the use of mortar .

Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emaiShare on printMore Sharing ServFast forward in time to year 1930. The first phase of the KRS dam is completed. Water level slowly rose to about 80 feet from the riverbed. Gone submerged in the backwater are many villages, Kannambadi included.