Halmidi
Halmidi is a small village in the Hassan district of Karnataka state, India, near the temple town of Belur.
Halmidi is best known as the place where the oldest known inscription exclusively in Kannada language, the Halmidi inscription, was discovered. Anterior to this, many inscriptions with Kannada words have been discovered, such as Brahmagiri edict of 230 BCE of Emperor Ashoka. However, this is the first full-length inscription in Kannada. This inscription is generally known as the Halmidi inscription and consists of sixteen lines carved on a sandstone slab. It has been dated to 450 CE and demonstrates that Kannada was used as a language of administration at that time. The inscription is in primitive Kannada with distinctive characteristics attributed to those of Proto-Kannada and uses Kannada script similar to Brahmi characters.
Getting around Halmidi the local way
- Get aroundKSTDC uses a luxury four-seats-across bus while the private companies use small, bumpy (especially if sitting in the back) minibuses.
From Wikivoyage: Belur, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-07.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Chennoju Kranthi (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.