File:Vaidyeshvara Temple, Talakad Karnataka.jpg

English: This is a JPEG format plan and architectural drawing of a historic Indian temple or monument. An alternate SVG format (scalable vector graphics) version of this file – for web graphics, design studies, print, dynamic and interactive applications – has also been uploaded to wikimedia commons.

The drawing:

• Talakad is a major Vaishnava pilgrimage site in Karnataka. It is a historic city referred to as Dalavanapura as well as Gajaranya in Sanskrit texts dated between the 4th century and the 10th century. It served as the capital of the Ganga dynasty. Now in Mysuru district, it is sometimes spelled as Talakadu or Talkad. It is home to many major Vishnu temples, many of them built or expanded or restored between the 10th to 14th-century.

• The Vaidyesvara temple, also spelled Vaidyeshvara or Vaidhyanatheshwara temple is located about 500 feet east of the Kirtinarayana temple. Unlike the latter, it is unclear when Vaidyesvara temple was built. Architectural elements and iconography suggests that parts of the temple was repeatedly desecrated and then restored in different periods. Some partial inscriptions have been found in the temple, but these are partial and strangely broken pieces from other Shiva and Vishnu temples in unexpected places and different material of construction (for example, one partial inscription found outside of the lintel mentions 'this lintel of the new Panchalingesvara temple'!). These strange pieces were likely collected by Hindus from ruins of destroyed temples in the Mysuru area to restore this temple back from its ruins. The best estimates place the original temple and the restorations between the 10th and 14th-centuries. One additional significant restoration can be dated to the 17th-century.

• The floor plan of this most intricately carved temple in Talakad is shown above.

• The temple's architectural plan follows the square and circle principle found in historic Sanskrit texts.

• The relative scale and relative dimensions in this architectural drawing are close to the actual but neither exact nor complete. The plan illustrates the design and layout, but some intricate details or parts of the temple may not be shown. In cases where exact measurements were not feasible, the drawing uses best approximations and rounds the best measurements feasible. The drawing also uses, in part, the temple plans measurements and related work done by Mysore Archaeological Department and published in 1912–1913 (a version was also re-published in 1935).

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