Badami, Aihole Pattadakal

Year 2005 was about end, I am still in Bangalore running between work place and home, something not usual, was just waiting for the year end shutdown, time to get away from work place, triffic traffic, explore and be myself.

This time my year-end holiday took me into pages from history, 5th to 7th century, time when this place used to be capital city of Chalukyas. The place I am talking of is in north of Karnataka about 500 km from Bangalore and is called Badami, other two cities that are spoken of in the single breath with Badami or Aihole and Pattadakal.

11 hours journey by Bus from Bangalore, lefts us at Badami in Bagalkote District of Karnataka, being a tourist season it was hard to find room to stay, given the fact that we were 15 of us in the gang, but thanks to one persons contact in the gang we managed to get 3 rooms for ourselves, after a quick “pratha karma” we were out of the hotel to explore, enjoy and get enlightned.

Aihole ( 30th Dec. 2005 )

First destination was Aihole, about 40 km from Badami, this place was also called arya pura and used to be the first capital of Chalukya kings, the capital was later shifted to Badami. This place is known as the primary school for chalukyas art temple construction, this place has more than 100 experimental temples spread across Aihole.

The most important temples at Aihole are Durga temple, lad khan temple, Meguti Temple and ravana pahadi cave temple which very close to the Durga gudi.

Durga temple

This temple has nothing to do with goddess Durga for the reasons best know to goddess herself, this temple is called Durga temple as it is located close to “Durga” meaning fort in kannada, the temple is dedicated to god Vishnu, the temple appears to be adaptation of Buddhist chaitya ( Hall ), the whole temple appears as being carried by “Garuda” the Vahana ( Vehicle ) of Vishnu. ( Just a thought !!! was the word Vehicle derived from Vahana ?? )

The platform of the temple resembles a horse shoe from the top view, the outer side of the temple is decorated with carvings depicting Vishnu’s 10 incarnations “Dashavatara”

Lad Khan temple

Located towards the south of Durga temple, Lad khan temple derives its due to the Muslim prince who made it his residence, the stones covering on the temple roof resembles the “Katgi mani” or wooden house of these days, with wooden logs kept on the roof to prevent the rain water from seeping into the sanctum.

Just outside the temple complex was this old lady busy selling Sibekai, while her grand son is keen on smiling at the camera.

Ravanapahadi Cave

Located just outside the temple complex is an experimental cave temple built by chalukyas, this temple is dedicated to lord shiva. Things to look for are unfinished Nandi in front of the cave, 7 feet tall Natraja carving along with Bhrungi and Ganesha. There is also a empty cave wall where you yourself can become a carving J, as the group became one.

Don’t miss the amazing carving of MahiShasura Mardhini, observe the penetration of the weapon through the body of the Demon Mahisha.

Meguthi temple

Standing at Ravanapahadi cave with your back towards the cave, if you look to your left you see a major mountain calling you with its beauty, climbing about 150 steps you reach a magnificent temple, this is called Meguthi temple, climbing up the temple roof you will see a statue of Bhagwan Mahaveer, from this we can understand the kind of support all the religions enjoyed during the rule of Chalukyas.

Do look out for Gowda temple, suryanarayana temple and museum located in the main temple complex, if you have time and energy don’t forget to explore the place for huchamalli temple and hundreds of other experimental temples in Aihole.

Pattadakal ( 30th Dec. 2005 )

After a great treat to eyes, could not find a treat to your stomach as Aihole is a very small place, decided to have lunch at our next destination that is pattadakal. We reached pattadakal bought some ( if I remember, we bought 65 ) bhakri ( jowar roti ) and curd, had a major lunch treat result……

Well Pattadakal, gets its name from pattada + kal ( Patta stands for ascending the throne and kal stands for stone ) place where the event of prince ascending the throne taks place is called pattadakal. This was the second capital of Chalukyas.

Temples here are also built of sand stone, the temples to watch out for in Pattadakal temple complex include Jambulinga temple , Glaganatha temple and virupaksha temple.

Jambulinga temple

The jumbulinga temple dedicated to lord shiva, has a north Indian style of Shikhara ( Gopura ) recalling temples of Bhubaneshwar, the shiva lingas built by Chalukyas have a typical lines on the linga, these lines are called Bhrama sutras.

Galaganatha temple

Similar to Jambulinga temple, galaganatha is also deidicated to shiva and resembles north Indian temples with conical gopura which is built with horizontal layered style with cushion like motifs in between.


Virupaksha temple.

Unlike the other two temples, this is one of the most beautiful and matured temple, if you look at this temple and compare with the other two, we can clearly see the south Indian architecture of the temple being used in this temple dedicated to Shiva again.

as customary symbol you can Nandi bull, the vehicle of Shiva in front of the virupaksha temple.


If you get into the Virupaksha temple the carvings will hold you dumb folded, be sure you don’t miss out on the carving that depict.

Existence of Auyurvedic treating technique as early as 7th Century.

Story from MahaBharata, Bihsmacharya of kuru vamsha laying on the arrow bed prepared by Arjuna, who is being guided by lord Krishna.


If you come out and go round the temple, you can see the carvings of various stories from great epics, like Ravana Carrying the kailash Parvatha ( above), as the sunsets behind Virupaksha temple, the sand stone of the temple takes a golden red color that is hard to miss.


With sun going down, we ended our first day trip with visit to Banashankari temple in Badami and went back to the hotel, enjoyed the North Karnataka special dinner with Bhakri and Palya, the exploration through out the day had left us urging for a quick sleep, that gave us good enough reason to hit the Bed.

Badami ( 31st Dec. 2005 )

Today the crowd was bigger, 2 more guys had joined from Banaglore, and one guy among them was engaged ( wow amazing, right !!! ), Getting the crowd to start was the greatest challange which we had in the moring, finally we managed to start after breakfast at 10:00 AM, the first destination was Mahakoota, a famous shiva temple close to Badami.

Mahakoota

On the way to Aihole, we get a diviation to go to Mahakoot, we took this road and go about 3-4 km inside we reached the place, it is about 16 KM from Badami city.

Mahakoota is said to be place where sage Agastya lived, this is a temple complex along the pushkarni. The legend is that river Goddess Ganga who purifies the souls of people she herself comes and takes bath in this pushkarni to get purified once a year.

Once we got into the temple complex, we saw quiet a few temples of shiva, saraswathi , Bhrama and countless number of shiv linga and nandi.

Behind the temple is a hillock which is nice to climb to get a arial view of Mahakoota, as you enter the foot of this hillock, you find a entrance door being gaurded by Kala and Kali, in the photo below you see only Kala, no no...wait the other one is not Kali even though scary :-) it is one of our friend, she is back with us so safe for you to make to trip to Mahakoot now ;-)

Badami caves