Ishvara Temple, Arsikere

The Ishvara temple, also referred to as the Ishwara or Isvara temple, is an early 13th-century Hindu temple in Arsikere, Hassan district, Karnataka India. Dedicated to Shiva, it is one of the most notable early Hoysala architecture examples with a rotating circular plan, a domed mandapa with a 16-point star shape, a pancatala vimana, and a galaxy of artwork depicting Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Vedic legends of Hinduism. The Ishvara temple was one among a complex of many Hindu temples in Arasikere. Most of these and their artwork were destroyed and mutilated in or after the 14th-century. Along with the Ishvara temple, a simpler and more damaged double temple (Shivalaya) survives and is to the immediate north of the Ishvara temple within the current compound. This double temple has red-stone pillars. About 200 meters to the southwest of the Ishvara temple is the Sahasrakuta Jinalaya – a ruined and mutilated monument of Jainism. The Ishvara temple is protected as a monument of national importance by the Archaeological Survey of India.