The Hoysala Kingdom was a Kannada dynasty originating from the Indian subcontinent that ruled most of what is now Karnataka, parts of Tamilnadu and South-Western Telangana between the 10th and the 14th centuries CE.

[8] Kannada folklore tells a legend of a young man, Sala (also known as Poysala), who saved his Jain guru Sudatta by killing a tiger (sometimes described as a lion) that they encountered whilst in a forest, near the temple of the goddess Vasantika at Angadi, now called Sosevuru.

[16] He annexed Gangavadi and parts of Nolambavadi from the Cholas in 1116 and moved the capital from Belur to Dorasamudra (modern Halebidu),[15][17] After taking Talakadu and Kolar in 1116, Vishnuvardhana assumed the title Talakadugonda in memory of his victory.

The next king, Nripa Kama I, had the title Permanadi, showing that an early alliance with the Western Ganga dynasty existed at the time of his reign.

[14] Vishnuvardhana's ambition of creating an independent Kingdom was fulfilled by his grandson Veera Ballala II, who freed the Hoysalas from domination by the Chalukya Empire during the first 20 years of his reign.

[19] The Hoysalas extended their foothold in modern-day Tamil Nadu around 1225, making the city of Kannanur Kuppam near Srirangam a provincial capital and taking control over the southern Deccan region.

[22] Toward the end of the 13th century, Veera Ballala III recaptured territory in the Tamil country which had been lost during a Pandya uprising, thus uniting the northern and southern portions of the Kingdom.

[23] In the early part of the 14th century, major political changes took place in the Deccan region during a period when large areas of northern India were under Muslim rule.

[27] Then, after nearly three decades of resistance, Veera Ballala III was killed at the battle of Madurai in 1343,[23] and the sovereign territories of the Hoysala Kingdom were merged with the areas administered by Harihara I in the Tungabhadra River region.

[30] The empire consisted of the valleys of three main rivers, the Krishna, the Tungabhadra, and the Kaveri, whose systems facilitated the growth of crops and generated an agricultural output that was immense.

[37] Taxes, collected in the form of cash, from trade and commerce generated considerable wealth for the Hoysala state, and enabled it to buy armaments, elephants, horses and precious goods.

The Garuda pillar at the Hoysaleswara temple in Halebidu was erected in honor of Kuvara Lakshma, a minister and bodyguard of King Veera Ballala II.

Several factors made Belur an attractive site as a capital: first, its location on the Yagachi River provided a good supply of water year-round.

Shantala Devi, queen of Vishnuvardhana, was a Jain but nevertheless commissioned the Hindu Kappe Chennigaraya temple in Belur, evidence that the royal family was tolerant of all religions.

[citation needed] During the rule of the Hoysalas, three important religious developments took place in present-day Karnataka inspired by three philosophers, Basava, Madhvacharya and Ramanuja.

Ramanuja, head of the Vaishnava monastery in Srirangam, preached the way of devotion (bhakti marga) and wrote the Sribhashya, a critique on Adi Shankara's Advaita.

[64] Records describe the participation of women in the fine arts, such as Queen Shantala Devi's skill in dance and music, and the 12th-century vachana sahitya poet and Lingayati mystic Akka Mahadevi's devotion to the bhakti movement is well known.

[citation needed] Trade on the west coast brought many foreigners to India including Arabs, Jews, Persians, Europeans, Chinese and people from the Malay Peninsula.

Large temples supported by royal patronage served religious, social, and judiciary purposes, elevating the king to the level of "God on earth".

[74] The Hoysala court supported such notable poets as Janna, Rudrabhatta, Harihara and his nephew Raghavanka, whose works are enduring masterpieces in Kannada.

In 1209, the Jain scholar Janna wrote Yashodharacharite, the story of a king who intends to perform a ritual sacrifice of two young boys to a local deity, Mariamma.

[79] Harihara, (also known as Harisvara) a Lingayati writer and the patron of King Narasimha I, wrote the Girijakalyana in the old Jain Champu style which describes the marriage of Shiva and Parvati in ten sections.

He came from a family of accountants (Karanikas) from Halebidu and spent many years in Hampi writing more than one hundred ragales (poems in blank verse) in praise of Virupaksha (a form of Shiva).

[77][81] In Sanskrit, Madhvacharya wrote the Rigbhshya on the Brahma Sutras (a logical explanation of Hindu scriptures, the Vedas) as well as many polemical works rebutting the doctrines of other schools.

[note 1][91] Hoysala temple sculpture replicates this emphasis on delicacy and craftsmanship in its focus on depicting feminine beauty, grace and physique.

[116] The outer walls of all these temples contain an intricate array of stone sculptures and horizontal friezes (decorative mouldings) that depict the Hindu epics.

[120] Temples served as local schools where learned Brahmins taught in Sanskrit, while Jain and Buddhist monasteries educated novice monks.

The local Kannada language was widely used in the rising number of devotional movements to express the ecstatic experience of closeness to the deity (vachanas and devaranama).

[121] Writings in Sanskrit included poetry, grammar, lexicon, manuals, rhetoric, commentaries on older works, prose fiction and drama.

Kannada was used to state terms of the grants, including information on the land, its boundaries, the participation of local authorities, rights and obligations of the grantee, taxes and dues, and witnesses.