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Somnathpur Temple stands in the centre of an enclosed court. Not a square inch of the surface of three stellate towers is without decoration, yet there is no feeling of superfluity in this impressiveness. I visited it in Mysore State. One inscription in Kannada characters says that this place was the holy hermitage of Vasistha. The temple is nearly seven hundred years old. It is Hoysala style. At Harihar (elsewhere in Mysore State) there is a Kannada inscription which refers to Somnathpur Temple and says that the Brahmin village attached thereto "was so full of learned men that even the parrots were capable of holding discussions in Mimamsa, Tarka, and Vyakarana!"

-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 2 : India Part 1 > # 32