Hoysala was an Indian dynasty (series of rulers who belong to the same family) that ruled over much of what is now Karnataka and northern Tamil Nadu from the 1000’s to the 1300’s. The Hoysalas were one of the last major Hindu dynasties in this part of India. The Hoysalas and other dynasties of the region were replaced by dynasties of invading Muslim rulers.
The Hoysala kings were feudatories (kings who had submitted to conquering powers) of the Late Chalukya dynasty until its fall in the late 1100’s. Major Hoysala rulers of this period include Vinayaditya, who reigned from 1047 to 1098; Ballala II, who ruled from 1173 to 1220; and Vishnuvardhana, who ruled from 1108 to 1142. Vinayaditya founded the Hoysalas’ feudal relationship with the Late Chalukyas and also established the dynasty’s capital at Dorasamudra (Halebid, in modern Karnataka). Under Ballala II, the Hoysalas defeated the Yadava dynasty to the north and became the dominant kingdom in the south of India. Vishnuvardhana conducted a number of wars with kingdoms to the south, such as the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas, thus enlarging his kingdom.
The Hoysala kingdom was greatly weakened after the death of Someshvara, who ruled in the mid-1200’s. His two sons divided the kingdom between them and fought against each other. A later king, Ballala III, who reigned from about 1292 to 1342, reunited the kingdom, but he was unable to preserve the kingdom against frequent attacks from the Vijayanagar Empire and the Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate.
In 1310, Dorasamudra was sacked by the army of Ala-ud-din Khalji, the Delhi sultan, as part of a long campaign to conquer kingdoms in the south of India. At first, the Pandyas, who ruled in what is now southern Tamil Nadu, were allied with the Hoysalas against the Muslims. But Ballala III agreed to become a feudatory of the Delhi Sultanate, and the Hoysalas joined in the Muslim campaign against the Pandyas. The Hoysala dynasty then began to decline; Ballala III’s son was the last of the Hoysala rulers.
Vishnuvardhana was a Jain when he came to the throne but later was converted to the Vaishnavite sect of Hinduism by the Indian philosopher and religious teacher Ramanuja . After his conversion, Vishnuvardhana had many new Hindu temples built. These temples were built in a new, distinctive style. They were ornately decorated, compared with earlier temples in the region. Often the entire exterior was covered in sculptures of gods and goddesses and scenes from Hindu religious literature. This was possible because the temple architects began to use soapstone, a much softer stone than had been used in previous temples, and hence easier to carve. The floor plan of these temples is also different, being star-shaped or many-sided rather than rectangular. Many of these temples still stand today, for example, in Belur, Halebid (formerly Dorasamudra), and Somnathpur, all of which are in southern Karnataka. The best examples of this style are probably the Hoysaleshvara Temple in Halebid and the Keshva Temple in Somnathpur.
