The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c12: Kukkanūr
The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c12
- Language
- English
Contents
- c12.s1 The Navalinga Temple — 8 parts
- c12.s2 The Temple of Kallēsvara — 5 parts
Kukkanūr
The Navalinga Temple
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T HE village of Kukkanūr is in H. E. H. the Nizām's territory, at a short distance across the border from Gadag in the Dhārwār district, and four miles north of Ittagi. In the middle of the town is a high-walled enclosure containing temples of different periods. The largest one, that of Mahāmayī, which occupies the centre of the court-yard, and is now the principal shrine of the group, has been so patched up and encrusted with whitewash that, from without, it is difficult to make much out of it. The nucleus, around which the rest has grown, appears to be of the same age as the walls and gateways of the enclosure, probably of the Vijayanagar period, and so comparatively late.
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About ten yards to the west of this temple is a group of far older shrines of much more interest to the antiquarian (Plates LVII—LIX). It is a cluster of nine shrines, arranged in no very definite order, known as the Navaliṅga or ‘Nine Liṅgas’, the arrangement being best seen on the accompanying plan (Plate LV). There are four halls attached to one another, three of them being in a line from east to west with small shrines off them. Each shrine contains a liṅga, and each is surmounted by its own śikhara or spire. It needs but a glance at the plan to see that this collection of shrines and halls is not the result of a premeditated design or it would have been more symmetrical. They were probably Vaiṣṇava, and Gaja-Lakṣmī holds the place of honour over every doorway. Above the antechamber to one shrine is a very perfect and well-carved architrave with the usual makaras with florid tails. In this instance, and it is very unusual, the makaras are covered with circular scales (Fig. 23).
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Fig. 23.—Architrave from the Navaliṅga temple, Kukkanūr.
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The disintegration of the walls gives these buildings an air of greater age than the Paṭṭadakal temples, but this may be due to a poorer quality of stone used. They have been overlaid with a wealth of decorative detail—rich embroideries in stone.
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The pillars are a great advance upon those at Paṭṭadakal. The four central ones, as seen in Plate LVI, with their great flat slab capitals, show the beginning of the later Cālukyan pillars.
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The shrines are very much closed in by huts and houses which crowd in upon them, their walls being in great part embedded in the mud walls of their surroundings. Within the temple are two inscription slabs, one much surface-worn, and there is another at an outer corner of one of the shrines.
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There is another old temple of the same style as the Navaliṅga to the north of it, but it is built around and is not cared for, its outer walls being used to dry cowdung cakes upon. There are three old well-preserved inscribed slabs inside it. To the north-west of this is a large tank, on the south margin of which are two small shrines facing one another. They, too, are old, but are not of much account. Between them a flight of steps leads down to the water's edge.
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At least, fifteen old inscriptions are to be found at Kukkanūr which vary in date from A.D. 1005 to 1186, together with some few Vijayanagar ones. They all record grants of land and villages to the different temples there, most being granted to that of Mallikārjuna. One is to the goddess Gaṅgā; another is to Kāḷikādēvi in the temple of Mahāmayī in 1178, and another is to Sarasvati. Yet one more is to the goddess Chāmuṇḍi. Considering the number of goddesses mentioned in these inscriptions, it is possible that the Navaliṅga shrines originally contained images of them.
The Temple of Kallēsvara
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This temple is situated on the south-western outskirts of the village. While still retaining its distinct Dravidian outline, the tower, in this example, shows an early leaning towards the later Cālukyan form, and is, in fact, in transition towards it. The storeys are not so boldly marked as in the earlier buildings, and the cornices are being broken up into vertical arrangements of offsets and recesses. The excessive heaviness of the different parts, so characteristic of the earlier Dravidian work, is absent here. The cornices of the several tiers of the tower, which are blocked out into fewer but more distinct and separate masses, are here reduced in dimensions and converted into a confused congeries of projections and returns. The simple horse-shoe niche, on the centre and corner members of the cornices, has lost its old characteristic vigour of outline and depth of carving, and is becoming a flat facet or panel, which is again duplicated on the lower or smaller cornice, rising in pairs to the top. The walls continue to follow very much the same plan as those of Virūpāksha at Paṭṭadakal—plain flat offsets and recesses with pilastered corners—but, in place of the great panels of figure sculpture, we have here little elongated pavilions in relief, crowned with little śikharas in both the southern and northern styles.
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The pillars, within the temple, have round shafts and capitals, but with square bases. They are rather thick and clumsy-looking, and are a step in advance of those in the Navaliṅga temple (Plate LVI). There are six windows in the hall, two of which are formed of plain cross bars, giving eight small square lights in each, the others having circular lights produced by a tracery of floral scroll work. A colossal bull has been placed in the porch, looking inwards to the *liṅga* which occupies the shrine. The temple faces the east.
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There is a very conspicuous absence of figure sculpture upon the temple; the *tāṇḍava* on the front, and a few little squatting figures in the mouldings of the tower, are all there are. But inside the temple there are two detached well-cut standing images, placed against the wall, one on either side of the entrance to the antechamber. One is of Brahmā and the other of Śiva (Fig. 24). They are well finished, the details being very elaborately made out. These may possibly be of a later date than the temple itself.
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Two great columns of sandstone, of the type of that at Mahākūṭeśvara, stood on the outskirts of the village on the west, but they have collapsed and are broken in pieces (Plate LVI). They are described further on in the section on columns.
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Fig. 24.—Image of Śiva from the temple of Kalleśvara, Kukkaṇūr.