Chamundeshwari Temple
— — a small white tower at the head of a thousand-step climb.
Not only on a wall.
“A Hindu temple on the crown of Chamundi Hill, about a thousand metres above the plain of Mysuru. The shrine honours Chamundeshwari, the form of Durga who in the local telling slew the demon Mahishasura on this rise. The path up runs past a monolithic Nandi bull carved from a single granite outcrop. On Dussehra the whole hill is lit at dusk, the way it has been since the Wadiyars sponsored the festival in the seventeenth century.
Chamundeshwari Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Chamundeshwari Temple stands at the summit of Chamundi Hill, roughly 13 kilometres southeast of Mysuru city in Karnataka. The hill rises to about 1,000 metres above sea level, around 800 metres above the surrounding plain. The shrine is dedicated to the goddess Chamundeshwari, the tutelary deity of the Wadiyar dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Mysore from the 14th century. The present seven-storey gopuram was raised in the 19th century, though parts of the shrine date to the 12th century under the Hoysala kings.
Halfway up the eastern stair stands the Nandi bull, five metres tall, carved from a single block of granite during the reign of Dodda Devaraja Wadiyar in the 17th century. The 1,008 stone steps from the foot of the hill to the temple were built in the 17th and 18th centuries; many are worn smooth by bare feet. The pyramidal gopuram at the temple gate, plastered white and gilded at the top, rises about 40 metres above the courtyard.
The temple's year turns around Dussehra, the ten-day festival honouring the goddess's victory over Mahishasura, traditionally observed in late September or October. The Mysuru Dasara has been sponsored by the royal family since 1610 and is one of the largest celebrations in southern India; on the final night the palace and the hill are lit together. Pilgrims climb the 1,008 steps year-round, but the festival days draw crowds in the hundreds of thousands. The temple opens before dawn.