Having covered October visits to Bangalore, Mount Abu, and Udaipur in earlier posts, I will step back to an earlier trip and a visit to the Golden Temple in Bylakuppe, Karnataka in March 2017.

The Golden Temple, also known as Namdroling Monastery, is a Buddhist monastery located in western Karnataka about 153 mile (247) kilometers from Bangalore. Established in 1963, it is one of the largest teaching centers of Tibetan Buddhism in the world (per Wikipedia). It is an impressive and beautiful facility.

We visited in the morning on our drive back from a work event at Club Mahindra Virajpet Coorg. After parking, we walked past the living facilities into the temple / monastery area. The first notable building we saw was the Zangdog Palri Temple, which is quite an impressive facility. We were unable to go inside.

Zangdog Palri Temple seen from the entrance path

It is impressive from the back as well as the front.

A view of the back of the Zangdog Palri Temple

I found this sign asking people not to pluck the flowers to be amusing.

Apparently the flowers need protection

The main temple, which earns the site its name Golden Temple, is a short walk from the Zangdog Palri Temple. I didn’t get a good wide view of the building, but you can get some idea of how it looks from this picture of me.

Me in front of the Padmasambhava Buddhist Vihara temple

Some fierce-looking dog-like creatures guard the entrance to the temple.

This fierce dog-like cerature guards the entrance to the Golden Temple

The interior of the temple is remarkable. There are beautiful and colorful pictures on all the walls. The statues at the back of the temple truly dominate the room. I had trouble finding definitive identification of the statues, but one of the information sites I found identified the statues in this order: Guru Padmasambhava, Buddha Sakyamuni, and Amitayus. I assume they are referring to them in left-to-right order and so that is how I identify them below.

Statues of Guru Padmasambhava, Buddha Sakyamuni, and Amitayus in the interior of the temple

The craftsmanship on the statues is very impressive. From left to right we have Guru Padmasambhava:

A close view of Guru Padmasambhava

Buddha Sakyamuni:

A close view of Buddha Sakyamuni

And Amitayus:

A close view of Amitayus

After enjoying the quiet of the temple for a while, we heard the chanting of monks. They were coming to the temple to pray.

Monks coming to the temple to pray

It was somewhat eerie to hear them chant outside of the temple. Here they are seen through the beads at the entrance.

The monks are praying outside of the temple

Chanting and bowing, the monks stayed outside the temple.

Praying monks outside the main temple

After a further walk around the gardens, we got back in the car for the four-hour drive back to Bangalore.