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Prasanna Somesvara Temple, Udyavara

On a low granite hillock above the coastal plain near Udupi stands the Prasanna Somesvara temple, a Shiva shrine whose curved end still shows the apsidal plan used in the early Hindu temples along Karnataka coast. The builders set a granite base and raised laterite walls above it; the form is simple, the sanctum rounded at the rear, the whole sitting among other shrines on the same rise. It blends Karnata Dravida elements with Tulu Nadu art. The temple includes a detached Namaskara mandapa of a design typically found in early Kerala. It has a Torana (gateway) and a Nandi mandapa with Rashtrakuta influences and design found in Maharashtra. Beside it is the Shambhu Shaileshwara temple; together they mark a place that Alupa records already treated as established by the years around 800 CE. Pillars standing in the courtyard and b efore the neighboring shrine carry early Kannada inscriptions. Their letters belong to the early ninth century; they speak of a town and a sacred hill that were...
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Parvati Temple, Sandur

On the wooded ridge of Krauncha Giri, seven miles west of Sandur, the Parvati temple stands in red sandstone, its whitewashed walls still carrying the marks of early Chalukya hands. The builders raised a square vimāna and joined it to a mandapa whose roof is a long barrel vault— śālā —that runs forward as an extended śukanāsa and meets the śikhara in continuous bands of ornament. The same pairing of vault and tower appears, smaller, at the Alampur Tārakā Brahmā temple; here it is carried out on a larger scale. Short-tailed makara toranas frame the wall niches, the same form seen only on the Upper and Malegitti Śivālayas at Badami and nowhere later among Chalukya work. No foundation record names the builder or the year. On the original entrance pillars, letters of the seventh century remain under the whitewash: one side carries the name Śrī Jinālayan, also cut on the Durga temple at Aihole; the other includes the word rājaputra. River goddesses are absent from the sanctum doorway, a...
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Ravanaphadi Cave Temple, Aihole

In the red earth of Aihole, where the temples first grew out of the ground like stubborn crops, there stands the Ravanaphadi site. Locally it is called Ravana’s Rock. The place is not one cave alone. It holds a rock-cut cave-temple, three small free-standing shrines near the entrance, and a worn fluted column that stands in front, its amalaka capital lying on the ground nearby. An eroded Nandi rests on a plinth. Some of the small shrines belong to the Early Western Chalukya years; one has an archaic look that is not later than the time of Mangalesha. Men cut the cave from the sandstone in the second half of the sixth century, in the same years the Badami caves were made. It is linked to the time of Mangalesha, who ruled after his half-brother Kirttivarma I. Mangalesha consolidated the earlier conquests and campaigned against the Kalachuris to the north, defeating their king Buddharaja. He set up a victory pillar at Mahakuta. Letters cut on the rock beneath the Nataraja tableau at Ravan...
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Naresar Group of Temples, Gwalior

Nestled north of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, the Naresar Temples Group stands as a captivating testament to India’s rich architectural heritage.  Here, midst forested hills is a narrow gorge. A seasonal stream cuts through the sandstone, and the temples sit on the terraces. Water still moves here in the rains—down the man-made channels, under the old stone bridges, past the lower shrines—and collects in the rock-cut tank. Twenty temples remain, small and closely set. Most are square sanctums with a short porch, three-tiered towers, and doorways where Ganga and Yamuna stand on their mounts and Garuda holds the tails of the nagas. One is rectangular, its roof a low vault of the Valabhi type, the same form that later appears on a larger scale at the Teli-ka-Mandir in Gwalior. .  The stones of the main group belong to the early eighth century, the Gopadri manner of the first Pratihara decades in this country. Lakulisa sits in a niche or over a doorway; Vinadhara-Shiva appears with ...
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Svarga Brahma Temple, Alampur

Svarga Brahma temple is one of the nine Alampur group of temples in Telangana.  Built from sandstone on the left bank of the Tungabhadra, it is one of the most sophisticated. A Sanskrit inscription places the work in the years 681–696 and records that Lokaditya Ela-Arasa, the yuvaraja and son of the king, caused the temple to be built in honor of the queen. The plan is simple and square in its essentials: a six-column porch, a hall with a nave of two rows of pillars, an antarala, and the sanctum containing a black-stone linga on its pedestal within four free columns. Above rises the four-storey rekha-nagara tower. At the base of the tower a three-storey sukanasa projects, and in its chaitya window a dancing Shiva is carved. On the outer walls the niches hold Lingodbhava, Nataraja, Dakshinamurti, Tripurantaka, and Trivikrama. Mithuna couples and the directional guardians appear among them. Friezes show four fables from the Panchatantra, and beneath each a short Sanskrit line gives t...
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Durga Temple, Aihole

In Aihole, Karnataka’s ancient laboratory of temple design, the 7th-century Durga Temple is a Chalukyan marvel. The curved end of this temple rises from the ground like the back of an elephant that has settled into the red earth. Men cut and fitted the sandstone in the late seventh and early eighth centuries, in the years of the Early Western Chalukyas. An inscription found in the temple records that a man named Kumara (Komarasinga) raised it for the god Aditya – another name for the Hindu Sun god. The inscription letters cannot be later than about the year 700. Komarasinga, the man who paid for the Durga Temple, held no royal title. He was likely a merchant and one of the great men of the town. He may have stood among the leading members of the Aihole Five Hundred, the merchant guild – neither Kshatriya nor Brahmin – with wealth already large enough to raise a temple of this size in public view. The king’s later gift of revenue for the temple’s upkeep shows that Hindu royals and commo...
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Meguti Temple, Aihole

On the flat top of Meguti Hill the stone temple stands where a man can look down on the red earth and the other temples of Aihole. Men raised it in 634–635 CE, in the reign of the Early Western Chalukya king Pulakeshin II. A Sanskrit inscription on the eastern wall, composed by the Jain poet Ravikirti, records that he built this stone abode of Jinendra. The letters give the date in the Saka year 556. The temple faces north and is made of sandstone. The inscription is a prashasti . It praises Pulakeshin II and lists his victories, among them the defeat of Harshavardhana of Kanauj. Ravikirti compares his own skill in verse to that of Kalidasa and Bharavi. That single comparison places both poets before the year 634. The record also notes the grant of six villages for the temple’s upkeep. The last two lines appear to have been added later. The building is plain compared with the richer temples of the site, yet the base carries gavakshas and carved reliefs. A pillared mukhamandapa stands...
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