The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c28: Balagāmve
The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c28
- Language
- English
Contents
- c28.s1 The Temple of Dakshina-Kēdārēśvara — 9 parts
- c28.s2 Temple of Tripurāntaka — 11 parts
Balagāmve
The Temple of Dakshina-Kēdārēśvara
c28.s1.1
B AḶAGĀMVE is a small village in Maisur territory, fourteen miles south-west of Hirē-Kerūr in the Dhārwār district. At one time it was a town of considerable importance in the Hoysaḷa kingdom, and was adorned with many fine buildings of that period. At present the village is composed of mud and thatched huts, interspersed with a few houses of a better kind. The surrounding country is very pretty and quite tropical. Tanks, lakes and ponds abound, which are thickly covered with the lotus and other water plants, and are frequented by great numbers of wild fowl. Plantations of sugarcane, betel-nut, *pān*, spices and other plants make it a very pleasant spot to camp in, especially in the hot weather. Scattered about in the fields and through the village are heaps of ruins, fallen columns, statues, inscription slabs, and scores of miscellaneous objects, which, with the ruins of its many temples, tell the story of former opulence and glory (Plates CXII—CXV).
c28.s1.2
The chief temple, and the best preserved of those now standing, is that of Kēdārēśvara situated on the bank of a large tank to the south of the village. Like the one at Raṭṭehaḷḷi—being, in fact, a twin building to it—it has three shrines around a common hall, in advance of which is the larger open hall. Like the last, too, this has the great sculpture of the Hoysaḷa king and the lion repeated upon the towers of two of the shrines. The corresponding sculpture for the third tower, the north one, was never put up, and still lies in an unfinished state in the courtyard below.
c28.s1.3
This animated group seems to be the representation of a scene taken from the following legend told in connection with an early chief of the Hoysaḷa family of Dvārasamudra in Maisur. It is thus related in one of the old inscriptions at Gadag¹: “For when, in the city of Śaśakapura, with the words ‘Slay O Sala,’ he was commanded by a certain ascetic to destroy a tiger that had come to devour him in the performance of his religious rites, he slew it and acquired the name of Hoysaḷa. From that time forth the name Hoysaḷa was attached to his race, and the emblem on its banner, causing fear to its foes, was a tiger.”
c28.s1.4
¹ *Indian Antiquary*, II, 301
c28.s1.5
Upon the great arched frontispiece of the main tower, beneath the Hoysaḷa group, is some superb arabesque carving in very bold relief (Plates CXIII and CXIV). The central image, which occupied the niche, within the arch, has gone, if, indeed, it had ever been put up, and, now, a dilapidated tiled roof, erected above the leaking maṇḍapa roof, abuts, most mercilessly, against the beautiful sculpture. Around the soffit of the arched niche, over the image, are aṣṭadikpālas, several of which have been broken away. The work around the arch, and especially the beautiful pendant falling from the mouth of the kīrtimukha mask are splendid specimens of the sculptor's art. The free and rich profusion of florid scrolls, curling boldly away from the block on which it is carved, looks more like a prolific crop of some lovely acanthus-like plant which, in the distant past, had covered the walls and had become petrified there. The sculptor knew, too, full well, the value of high relief and deep shadows when placing these objects high above the ground and distant from the observer. And yet there is much fine detail that is lost to the observer upon the ground. Still there is no weakness about this magnificently-cut kīrtimukha mask; on the contrary, it is remarkably strong—strong in its broad treatment, strong in its splendid outline, and strong in its vigorous lights and shadows
c28.s1.6
From out of the depths of its cavernous jaws issue two makaras, one on either side, between which hangs the lovely pendant or lace-like jabot. The great protuding eyeballs, which are so much in keeping with the huge jaws, show great strength and decision of outline. The sharp lower edge of the nostril gives, at once, a well-defined shadow beneath it with no weak half-tones. There is a repetition of this formidable face in that of the lion above, for it is a lion and not a tiger, as its ample mane shows. There can be little doubt that the lion's face was the original of the grotesque kīrtimukha.
c28.s1.7
The ceiling of the open hall has, in its central compartment, a great aṣṭadikpāla panel, similar to that in the temple at Kundgol, and the slab at Ganjigaṭṭi (Plate CLIX), but the figures and carving generally are more stiff, though more detail is introduced. The rest of the temple is much like those at Chaudadāmpur and Hāveri, already described, and there is nothing more of particular interest about it.
c28.s1.8
Near the temple, in the yard, are nineteen inscription slabs, one of which records a grant in A.D. 1075 of a village to the Vaiṣṇava temple of Narasimhadēva at Baḷigāve in the time of Sōmēśvaradēva II.¹
c28.s1.9
¹ Indian Antiquary, IV, 208
Temple of Tripurāntaka
c28.s2.1
In another temple, that of Tripurāntaka, which is very much ruined, towards the north-east side of the village, is some very good perforated stonework in the form of windows and screens. The two sides of the shrine doorway have most remarkable panels. They are each filled with three pairs of Nāga figures, whose long serpentine extremities are so intertwined and knotted as to fill up the panels, leaving as lights the interstices between the coils of the tails and the bodies (Plate CXV). Above the doorway is an elaborate architrave bearing the images of Brahmā, Śiva and Viṣṇu, with the dikpālas and a host of minor deities surrounding them. Śiva is here represented in his Bhairava form. In the same hall, upon the north side, is a pair of windows similar in design to the panels on either side of the east doorway at Unkal. In a narrow band of bas-reliefs, round the exterior of the temple, are a series of most obscene pairs of figures, which are not often found upon Chālukyan temples. As a rule they are confined to very small figures, and are only discovered upon a close inspection of the walls. The larger sculptures seldom ever contain such work.
c28.s2.2
A new feature in this temple is the large sculptures around the basement. The upper edge and the lower course of the base project, and held in between these by mortices and tenons, at intervals, are large slabs bearing groups of figure sculpture. Most of these have been removed, and some still lie about the place uncared for. Of two of these which are
c28.s2.3
Fig 31.—Slab bearing the Hoysaḷa sculpture, Baḷagāmve.
c28.s2.4
illustrated one (Fig. 31) is a representation of the Hoysaḷa king slaying the lion, somewhat similar to the group on the tower of the temple of Kēdārēśvara, and which appears to have been a very favourite subject with these southern sculptors. The story, as given upon this stone, is not quite the same as that given in the Gadag inscription. From the slab we can gather that the king, when out hunting with his dogs, speared a wild boar and brought it to earth. At the same moment a lion—not a tiger, for it has a full flowing mane—sprang out of the jungle to seize it, when the king attacked the lion single-handed and on foot. In the small figure on horseback we see the king setting out for the chase. This, with the elephant on the other side, to indicate the jungle, is only thrown in to fill up the corners of the slab. Beneath the lion is the wounded boar, with the spear or sword cut shewn on its flank, the dogs having left it to worry the lion. There is no ascetic in this group, nor is there in the groups upon the towers of the temple here and at Raṭṭihaḷḷi. A second smaller figure is introduced into the larger groups, but it is of an armed attendant, merely put in as a prop to the lion.¹
c28.s2.5
¹ Wild boar hunting was a favourite pastime. An inscription upon a *viragal* at Baḷagāmve records the death of a certain individual while following the boar, and a copper plate grant tells us that Govinda III., of the Rāshṭrakūṭas, had good sport with wild boars at the Rāmēśvara *tīrtha*
c28.s2.6
Lying upon a mound, on the east of the village, are the remains of a colossal image of a Jina, which must have stood eleven or twelve feet high. The trunk lies beside the feet, which are standing upright. About the village are other Jaina figures and Jaina inscription slabs. In the centre of the village stands a tall Gaṇḍabhēruṇḍa column which is described further on with miscellaneous objects. It is not at present connected with any temple (Fig. 32).
c28.s2.7
The earliest temple of which mention is made in the inscriptions, is that of the Pañcha-Liṅga which is said to have been erected by the Pañch Paṇḍavas when they visited the place. The ruins of a Pañcha-Liṅga or ‘Five-Liṅga’ temple still exist, which may be a successor to an earlier one. It seems to have been adorned with some fine sculpture.
c28.s2.8
The temple of Dakṣiṇa-Kēdārēśvara was probably built about the end of the eleventh century, just before which, a Jaina temple had been put up (in A.D. 1068). The completion of the maṇḍapa was still in hand in A.D. 1200, unless this was some repair. Inscriptions recording grants to the temple extend from A.D. 1103 to 1193. In an inscription of A.D. 1065 mention is made of the building of a Buddha vihāra, when provision was made for it together with the gods Kēśava, Lōkēśvara and Buddha. Two years after this a Buddhist image of Tārā-Bhagavatī was set up. Attached to the temple of Kēdārēśvara was the Kōḍiya maṭha, a kind of college which was not only a celebrated seat of learning but was also a centre for the dispensing of medicines to all manner of sick persons, and, like the mediæval monasteries in Europe, for the distribution of food to the destitute and mendicant of all classes and sects.¹
c28.s2.9
¹ See Rice's *Epigraphia Carnatica*, Vol. VII
c28.s2.10
Fig. 32.—Image on the top of the Gaṇḍabhēruṇḍa column, Baḷagāmve.
c28.s2.11
There are upwards of eighty inscriptions at Baḷagāmve which tell us of the building of temples and the granting of money and lands for their upkeep; they also record the meritorious deaths of heroes and fanatical suicides. They are Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Jaina and Buddhist. The earliest known inscription here is one of the time of Vinayāditya Chālukya, which is interesting as being the earliest known stone record in Western India that has an emblem sculptured upon it—that of an elephant.