The main temple is entered from the north through a pair of gateways with uncompleted brick towers. The inner gateway leads directly into a grandly-scaled natyamandapa (‘dance hall’). This open structure has 70 majestic granite columns carved with nearly human-size deities, celestial musicians and dancers. They carry a ceiling almost 4 metres high above the floor. At its centre a corbelled dome with elaborate carvings reaches a height of c. 6.4 metres. Steps on the south side of the natyamandapa ascend to a narrow columned verandah that runs around three sides of the outer walls of the inner part of the temple. The ceilings of the natyamandapa and verandah just noticed are covered with fine paintings.

The inner part of the Virabhadra temple comprises a spacious, but poorly lit mahamandapa (‘great hall’), off which open a number of shrines. The central space of the hall is adorned with a single painted composition of Virabhadra (c. 7.6  x 4.2 m), the deity worshipped in the sanctuary at the far end of the hall. Other paintings, now damaged are seen on the ceilings over the side bays of the hall, on the walls and ceiling of the passageway running around three sides of the Virabhadra sanctuary, in the Shayanagara (bedroom of the deities), and in the subsidiary shrine known as the Raghunathalaya.

The subjects depicted are mostly devotional, drawn from the popular epics, the Periya Puranam and other texts. They include also depictions of Virapanna and Viranna, the temple donors, together with their retinues, thereby offering an invaluable visual record of courtly life during Vijayanagara times.