File:11th 12th century Iswara temple, Kamaleshwara Kalleswara Kamlishvara, Jalasangvi Karnataka India - 28.jpg

English: Jalasangvi is now a village near the border of northeast Karnataka and Telangana, close to the railway station Humnabad in Bidar district. Before the 14th-century, Jalasangvi was a major town. In the epic Mahabharata, it is named as the capital of King Virata and one of the locations where the Pandava brothers lived during their exile.

Inscriptions and literature suggest that Jalasangvi – also spelled Jalsangvi, Jalsanghvi, Jalasanghavi – once hosted a group of temples. One of these is the Iswara temple – believed to be the same as one referred to as the Eswara, Kamaleshwara, Kalleswara, Kamalishwara and Kamlishvara – in 19th and 20th century literature.

The Iswara temple was built on the banks of a man made tank in Jalasangvi, during the reign of Vikramaditya VI – a prolific sponsor of innovative Hindu temple architecture. This is also a square plan temple, one where two squares are intertwined in a harmonic pattern to give it a star-shaped form. The temple is relatively simple, featuring a mandapa (pilgrim's hall with pillars) and garbhagriya (sanctum). A Shiva linga is in the sanctum.

The outer walls of the temple as well as the inner surfaces of the mandapa and pillars have exquisitely detailed statues, reliefs and ornamental carvings. The spire (Shikara, Vimana) of the temple is lost. The reliefs and artwork found in this temple include Shaivism (Shiva), Vaishnavism (Vishnu), Shaktism (Devi) and socio-cultural themes such as a musician, dancer, writer, a mother holding a baby, amorous couples, and others.

The temple is notable as one of several pre-14th century Hindu temples found in India where women as shown to be writing on a stone or scroll in a regional script. In the Isawra temple, completed around 1100 CE, one of the girls is depicted as writing an inscription in the Sanskrit language and Kannada script. The inscription includes a praise for King Vikramaditya VI. That, along with the epigraphical evidence, has helped scholars date the completion of this temple.

The temple was largely destroyed and ruins along with other regional Hindu temples after the 15th-century, in the wars between Islamic sultanates and Hindu kingdoms. The temple has been restored. Parts of ruins can be seen in the temple compound as well as many have been plastered back into the temple. Many icons closer to the ground level have chopped off limbs, nose, face, breasts and other body parts. Some of the stone reliefs higher up on the temple walls have survived.

The innovations in this temple with tribhanga pose dancers called Surasundaris in Sanskrit texts, or Salabhanjikas (interrupting feature in sala – walls or in halls), or locally as Madanika, temple likely inspired the Halebidu and Belur temples.