Karnataka - Mysore   

Sri Gunjanarasimhaswamy temple at T. Narsipur to be restored

MYSORE: The Department of Archaeology and Museums will take up the restoration of the ancient Sri Gunjanarasimhaswamy temple at T. Narsipur with funding by a Non-Resident Indian.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed on Saturday by the authorities with Ramanuja Iyengar, who was born in T.Narsipur but is at present a cardiologist settled in Florida, USA.

The cost of the restoration work is around Rs.1.25 crore and the entire amount is being donated by Dr. Ramanuja Iyengar who evinced interest in the project and was keenly pursued by the Director of Department of Archaeology R. Gopal and the Deputy Commissioner of Mysore.

Consequent to the State Government’s approval to the venture, the MoU was signed and even the local community has come forward to support the venture.

The restoration work is expected to take about 30 months and Mr. Gopal has said that utmost care would be taken to restore the temple without damaging its ancient features.

To successfully implement the project, a committee of experts has been constituted and its members include G. Ashwathnarayana, Secretary to Government, PWD (retired); K.S. Subba Rao; K.S. Krishnamurthy, engineering geologist; R. Gopal and S.M. Pujari, archaeological conservation engineer.

T. Narsipur which is a prehistoric site where many neolithic sites have been unearthed, is located at the confluence of Cauvery, Kabini and Spathika Sarovar.Considered as sacred as Prayaga, the Gunjanarasimhaswamy temple is a massive complex belonging to the Vijayanagar period.

The image of Narasimha in the sanctum sanctorum has a twig of the gunja tree and hence is called Gunjanarasimhaswamy.

The temple has inscriptions dating from the Krishnadevaraya period and is renowned for the voluminous records in Nagari script.

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