Amruthapura Temple

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Amruthapura is home to 800 years old temple dedicated to AmrutheshwarAmruthapura is home to 800 years old temple dedicated to Amrutheshwar. About 10 kms form Tarikere.

 

the dawn sun rays pass between Nandi's two horns to illuminate the Siva Lingam on the eighth of February each year. Here, however, the sunflowers on Nandi that are carved just under the horns and above the ears do not protrude from the sides of the head ,so there is no major ear/sunflower notch for dawn sunlight as on the Nandi figure at Halebid. At Amruthteshvara the Nandi figure is oriented so that dawn light shines between Nandi's horns. Thus it is obvious that the sunflower is purposefully placed on the sculpted image in relation to the solar phenomena being observed or commemorated. In the Amruthteshvara Temple the azimuthal bearing of the gap between the temple's central colonnade provides barrier controls for the entry of the dawn sunlight. This colonnade is oriented twenty to twenty-three degrees south of due east. The orientation of this temple allows light to enter from 5 to 12 February. The solar significance of the central date of 8

February is that it is halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.10

Just 240 kilometers east of Amruthteshvara, at Bangalore, Karnataka, the incredibly complex cave temple called Sri Gave Ganadeshvara demonstrates the concern in ancient Hindu culture for obtaining solar calendric dating. The underground granite cave is cut to form a temple and maze into which the sunset rays enter only by passing over the top of a set of buildings, across a roadway, through a three-meter-high arch perched atop a boundary wall of the temple (the arch is designed only for the passage of light, not people or animals; , across the entryway of an open compound, through a window, across an outer room, through another window, across the main meeting room in front of Nandi, over Nandi's horns, through a doorway that has a sunflower carved on the first doorsill, and finally through a small anteroom and across another sill with a lotus carved on it. The rays then illuminate the Siva Lingam inside the inner sanctum on the evening of a single

day, 14 January (marking approximately one-fourth of the period between winter solstice and spring equinox), to start the Makrama Sankramana (or Makra Sankrante) week of ceremonies. Another distinct lotus image, with its multiple rings of petals, is carved on the doorsill of the entrance to the main worship room and serves as a comparison to the sunflower on the other sill. The lotuses on the sills have relatively long petals and a very small, flat, circular center without the outer raised ring. The sunflower on the inner sill, however, has much shorter petals and a large, smooth, slightly mounded circular center with the small, raised ring between the central disc and the ray flowers.