By R.G. Singh, Secretary, Ramsons Kala Pratishtana
Among the fourteen temples inside the Mysore fort, Sri Shweta Varahaswamy temple is at the South gate; which is why this majestic gateway is named as ‘Varaha Gate’. This temple and the deity has quite an interesting story about it.
In fact, the deity Sri Shweta Varahaswamy manifested elsewhere, was being worshipped in a far off land for hundreds of years before it was uprooted from its original kshetra and installed in a different temple for almost 100 years. That temple was demolished and the deity was relocated to a shrine in another temple for a few years. About 217 years back, it was installed in a grand temple in Mysore. But even this temple was not built here. An ancient Hoysala style stone temple was dismantled stone by stone, transported and reassembled diligently at the place where it still stands today.
Fort south gate road with opulent mansions, dwellings and the mahadwara of Shweta Varahaswamy temple is on the left. A canopied watch tower of the fort gate is seen on the right. Note the houses, mansions and residences which are no longer there.
[Collection: Mike Souter, England.]
It was the year 1675 C.E., Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar (1672-1704 CE) and his juggernaut of an army were on their way down south, decimating smaller kingdoms and principalities, annexing them. As per the popular narrative, he encountered the beautiful white complexioned self-manifest image of Sri Varaha, the third avatar of Vishnu, at the Srimushnam temple. He was mesmerised and wanted to take the deity to his island capital of Srirangapatna. The deity wouldn’t budge, so he angrily prised it out with such a brute force that its legs remained rooted in its place and the rest of the idol from its knee and above came into his hands. He brought it to Srirangapatna, gets golden prosthetics to the idol, builds a temple and installs it there. This temple was demolished in the third quarter of 18th century and the deity was housed in a small shrine in the larger Sri Ranganatha temple.
All the buildings, houses and mansions, are missing except the Varaha temple. The majestic south gateway (Varaha Dwara) with the stucco image of Kalinga mardana Krishna in an arched pediment stands in place of the watch tower, now.
[Pic. by: Raghu Dharmendra. Copyright: Ramsons Kala Pratishtana]
The death of Tipu Sultan in the year 1799 is an inflection point in the history of Mysore. After 189 years, the capital was shifted back to Mysore, a fortress town on the banks of Devaraya Sagara. In the year 1809 C.E., Dewan Purnayya orders translocating a dilapidated old Hoysala temple in present day Shimoga district, to Mysore. It was reassembled near the South gate within the fort. The deity of Sri Shweta Varahaswamy was brought from Srirangapatna and consecrated in this temple. Talented artists from the royal atelier decorated the temple walls profusely, including the shrine of Ambujavalli, with Mysore style paintings.
Abutting the fort wall, the temple was amidst densely packed houses and dwellings with poor sanitation and ventilation. Mysore was struck with waves of the pandemic, bubonic plague, from 1896 until 1908. As a permanent measure, congested dwellings surrounding the palace, within the fort, were demolished and the population was shifted outside the fort by constructing new extensions, residential areas, markets and agraharas with underground drainage, good sanitation and broad wide roads. ‘Acres of emerald turf and beds of glowing flowers cover the once plague-stricken areas,’ said a 1930 guide to Mysore (Parsons, Mysore City).
This post was published on November 9, 2026 7:30 pm