Photo: Gopuram of Virupaksha Temple

The Virupaksha temple is a magnificent work of art, showcasing a range of amazing things starting from beautifully sculpted stones, pieces of Indian mythology in sculptures and paintings to a larger than life pin-hole camera mechanism.Long before Michelangelo painted the Ceiling of the Sistine chapel, the people of Hampi had already dedicated the hard-to-reach ceiling of the Virupaksha temple to print odes to the gods. The paints which were made of dyes extracted from vegetables and plants are still stunningly bright till date.