Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c21.10

c21.10

Two of the temples, the Papanath and the Virupaksha, are larger and more important than the others; the former is certainly the older, and it is not improbable that it was built as the chief temple soon after the capital was founded, possibly before the end of the seventh century. Apparently dedicated in the first instance to Vishnu and Surya, it seems to have been converted afterwards to the worship of Siva. The other large temple, that of Virupaksha, is shown by its inscriptions to have been built during the reign of Vikramaditya II, so that its mean date would be about A.D. 740. It is dedicated to Siva and may therefore have been built to take the place of the previous example when the Chalukyan dynasty appears to have changed over from Vaishnavism to Saivism. It is of some significance that of these two temples, Papanath in the Indo-Aryan style is dedicated to Vishnu, and Virupaksha in the Dravidian style was built for the worship of Siva.