How this is written
TempleStory is a reading archive of the temples around you. It exists because the information about these places is scattered across travel blogs, devotional sites and Wikipedia mirrors that repeat one another, and rarely agree.
Tradition is marked as tradition
Many of these places come with origin stories: a sage’s penance, a deity turning to face a devotee, a temple built overnight. We tell them, because they are part of what the place means. We do not present them as dated events. Where a date rests on an inscription we say so, and where it rests only on repetition we say that instead.
Timings are verified or not shown
A wrong schedule is the most harmful thing a site like this can publish: it sends families on long drives to closed doors. We show a timetable only after confirming it with the temple, with the date we checked. Where sources conflict, we show the conflict.
Not every sacred place is a temple
A Jain basadi is not a temple, and a matha is an institution as much as a shrine. Each entry is labelled by what it actually is.
We also deliberately do not list daivasthanas, the shrines of the Tulu daiva tradition. Many are family or community places rather than public sites, and the rituals performed there are hereditary obligations, not performances. An explainer on the tradition is planned, written with people from the region.
Where we cover
Tulu Nadu first. The Tulu-speaking coast of Karnataka: Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. Laterite walls under tiered tiled roofs, no gopurams, and four traditions living in the same few hundred square kilometres. Other regions will follow when they can be written properly, not before.
Pictures
Where we have a photograph of a place we show it, and where the photographer asks for credit, the credit sits on that place’s page. Where we do not, an original illustration stands in. Several of these places restrict photography inside, so every photograph here is of the outside.
Languages
Every page is in English and in Kannada. The Kannada is a careful first translation, and we welcome corrections from readers who know these places in their own language.
Privacy
If you ask to sort by distance, your browser shares your position with this page, which uses it to measure straight-line distances and keeps it only for the current tab. It is never sent to us or anyone else. Typefaces are served from this site, so opening a page sends no request to a third party.