Veerabhadra Temple, Lepakshi

Built in the 1530s by brothers Virupanna and Viranna, treasury officials under the Vijayanagara emperor Achyuta Raya, the Veerabhadra Temple at Lepakshi is celebrated for the largest and best-preserved corpus of Vijayanagara mural painting to survive on any ceiling in India, its mineral-pigment scenes of Shiva mythology still vivid after nearly five centuries. Among its 70 carved granite pillars, one -- the 'hanging pillar' -- rests with a visible gap beneath its base, an engineering curiosity generations of visitors have tested by passing cloth beneath it. A single-boulder Nagalinga sheltered under a carved seven-hooded serpent stands in the courtyard. Local legend ties the site's name to the Ramayana, where the fallen vulture Jatayu is said to have addressed Rama here ('le pakshi', rise bird).