Folklore Museum

It was built by Maharani Regent Vani Vilasa Sannidhana, wife of Chamaraja Wodeyar, for her daughter Jayalakshami. It has around 200 rooms, an exotic dancing hall and a Kalyanmantap with intricately carved wood pillars. It was converted into a museum and stores artefacts about local folk and performing arts, tools and objects of various artisans and other archaeological findings. Princess Jayalakshmi was married to her maternal uncle. Dewan Sir M. Kantha Raja Urs. After independence, their son-in-law, Sirdar K. Basavaraj Urs, sold the property to the University of Mysore to start its postgraduate centre, and the then Vice Chancellor, Dr K.V. Puttapa christened the place as Manasa Gangothri.

The perimeter is 3.6 km. There are many birds to see and the footpath is well maintained with small gardens around it.

The Happy Man Park near Kamakshi Hospital, some three kilometres from the Railway Station, is a very popular hangout for children and parents. The park is quite compact but contains a mini zoo and many hens and ducks roam around the lawns freely. The park is landscaped with a little stream and ‘wooden’ bridges. Music is played through loudspeakers scattered around the park. The park is open from 4:30PM to 9PM and the crowd are quite big around 6PM. It is also open for a while in the morning for the benefit of joggers. The main attraction of the park is a statue of a ‘Happy Man’ with a potbelly. The statue resembles Maitreya or Laughing Buddha, quite popular in Southeast Asian countries.

Formerly known as the oriental library, it was started in 1891 and contains over 33,000 palm leaf manuscripts.