The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c22.s1.15

c22.s1.15

There can be no doubt of the original dedication of the temple to Śiva, for the inscriptions declare it. On the wall to the left of the south entrance of the inner hall are two short inscriptions, which begin with an invocation to Śambhu, and have, at the top, the liṅga and the bull. Upon either side of the shrine door are other inscriptions, two of which record grants to the god Nāgarēśvaradēva in A.D. 1138, and a third in 1091. But another inscription, near the last, tells us of a grant to a Jaina temple in A.D. 1120, a date between the last two, which are only forty-seven years apart. It thus cannot well refer to this temple, and there is no indication, whatever, of the temple ever having been used by the Jains.