The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c10.s1: The Temple of Mālegitti-Śivālaya
The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c10.s1
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The Temple of Mālegitti-Śivālaya
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Beneath the northern fort, most picturesquely perched upon an overhanging crag is, perhaps, the oldest and, certainly, the most complete temple in the place, the Mālegitti-Śivālaya, or the ‘Śaiva shrine of the female Garland Maker.’ It is not a large building, being but fifty-six feet in length. It is of the same style as Mēguṭi and the older temples at Aihole, and of the same class of work as those at Māmallāpuram, only that its outline and general design have a much older appearance than in the latter. As in the old temples at Aihole, the porch is supported upon four full pillars. It is a complete Dravidian temple, the *kalaśa* or finial, alone, being missing. All its parts are heavy and massive and well proportioned to one another. The photograph (Plate XXIX) shows what the exterior is like, so it is unnecessary to describe it in detail.¹
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¹ A view of the other side of this temple is given in *The History of Indian and Eastern Architecture*, Vol. I, Plate VIII.
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The entrance doorway is very plainly moulded in lines of rectangular mouldings, without a vestige of ornament, and there is no dedicatory image on the door lintel. The ceiling of the porch is perfectly plain.
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Like the Aihole temples, the interior is divided by its pillars and entablature into a central and two side aisles. The pillars, here and in the porch, have heavy square shafts and simple bracket-capitals but no bases. The ceiling of the nave is divided into three bays by cross-beams. In a lotus medallion in the centre bay is Viṣṇu seated upon Garuḍa, with an attendant on either side of him. Four perforated stone windows, two on either side of the hall, admit a few struggling rays of light into the interior. The pattern of these is that of a plain square-barred grille such as is found in the temple of Saṅgamēśvara at Paṭṭadakal.
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The shrine doorway is fairly well moulded but is not decorated, and has Garuḍa on the lintel. This, with Viṣṇu in the ceiling, shows, unmistakably, that the temple was originally Vaiṣṇava. Within the shrine is a low stand or altar for an image, but into the mortise in the top has been inserted a stone to serve as a *liṅga*. That this was not intended as a *śaluṅkā* or *yoni* for a *liṅga* is evident from the fact that the present *liṅga* does not occupy the centre of it (see section, Plate XXXII).
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Before the shrine door is a very shallow antechamber, and, in the recess between the corner of the doorway and the outer pilaster of the same, on the south side, is a curious sculptured group of two figures. The larger is that of a man holding a club in his right hand and, apparently, the hair of the figure below in his left. This is a human being from the waist upwards, but with a horse's posterior and hind legs. The larger figure has his left leg raised and planted upon the horse's rump. This sculpture probably represents Viṣṇu, as Keśava, slaying the demon Keśin who took the shape of a horse.
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Upon the north face of the temple, outside, between two windows, in a panel, is a standing image of Viṣṇu (see Plate XXXIII), while, in the corresponding position on the south side is a standing image of Śiva. A very curious thing about these is that they have been represented nude, which is quite unusual. On the front of the temple are two images, one on either side of the porch. That on the south side is a two-armed warrior holding a sword in his right hand and a little disc or shield in the other. That on the other side is also a two-armed figure, but the hands are broken. It is possible these are portrait statues of some royal persons. The panels around the shrine walls have never been carved. The temple faces the east.
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There are two inscriptions upon the temple, one short one of no particular interest on the wall on the right of the entrance and a longer one on the front face of one of the pillars in the porch. The latter is of the time of the Vijayanagar king Sadāśivarāya, dated in A.D. 1543, and records the construction of a bastion, which is probably the one just above the temple. Another inscription of the same date, engraved in Cave III, records the construction of a bastion on the southern fort, above the cave.
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Upon the hill top, above this temple, are the remains of another of the same early character, but now in a deplorable condition. The *maṇḍapa* or hall has almost entirely disappeared, only a portion of its south wall, and the wall around the *pradakshiṇa*, now stand, together with the shrine and tower. There is no dedicatory image upon the lintel of the doorway of the shrine (Plate XXX).