There are three well known and talked about hills in Hampi. These are: Mathanga (or Matunga) Hill, Hemakuta Hill and the Malayavanta Hill. Though a bit isolated the Malayavanta hill is on the way to the Vittala Temple from the Kamalapura town.
Built and constructed in accordance with the Dravidian style of architecture, the Malayavanta Raghunathaswamy temple has peculiar and interesting motifs of fish and marine creatures adorning its inner walls.
According to mythology, it is here God Ram and his brother Lakshman waited till the monsoon season got over before proceeding with their journey southward in search of Sita and with Hanuman’s monkey army to rescue Sita from Ravan in Lanka (now Sri Lanka). This is also the place where Hanuman and his team hid the jewels of Sita and the place where Vali was killed by God Ram. Thus this place is closely connected with many important aspects of the Hindu epic “The Ramayan”.
As you go past the temple you start climbing to reach the top of the hill which offers excellent vantage points to see the sunset and the vast landscape of Hampi with a panoramic view.
One of the interesting carvings that you will come across is s series of “Shivlings” a symbolic representation of God Shiva (Unlike other Gods Shiva is not represented in Human form in any Indian temple). There are 29 of them carved on two sides of a huge rock.
The temple of Malayavanta Raghunathaswamy strongly echoes the aesthetics and principles of Dravidian art and architecture, making for an absolutely exquisite structure whose splendour and grandeur has not waned even after the passage of several years.
An interesting sight is the close proximity of a huge rock in front of the temple. The gap is just sufficient for a small size hatchback car to squeeze through. How the temple got constructed so close to this rock is not clear or whether the rock slid and moved closer to the temple over the ages needs to be explored.
