The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c30: Dambal

The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c30

Language: English

c30.s1 The Temple of Dodda-Basappā — 11 parts

Dambal

The Temple of Dodda-Basappā

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Fig 34.—Pillars in the porch of Dodda-Basappā temple, Dambal.

IN the temple of Dodda-Basappā at Dambal, thirteen miles south-east of Gadag and sixteen south-west of Ittagi, we come upon the plan of the Chālukyan temple in its fullest development, where it has left the rectangular for the star-shaped plan with many angles.¹ The general outline of the this particular temple is not unlike the Fig. 8, with a serrated edge all around (Plates CXXIII and CXXV). This is obtained by revolving a square about its centre, its angles stopping at points equidistant from one another, the angles and re-entrant angles thus formed, being the perimeter of the plan. The shrine is planned on twenty-four salient angles, and the hall on thirty-two, but the continuity of these is broken where the shrine joins the hall and where the porches come. This is the only known example of this class in the Kanarese districts of the Bombay Presidency, and was, perhaps, due to the incursions of the Hoysalas who seem to have been inclined towards this style.

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¹ Other star-shaped temples that might be mentioned are to be found at Halebid, Somnāthpur and Belūr in Maisur, Nilanga in the Nizam's territory, Kokamthan in the Ahmednagar district, the temple of Sūrya at Rānpur in Rājputānā, at Ramgarh in the same province, and at Seori-Nārāyan in the Central Provinces.

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The Chālukyan style is here at its furthest point of divergence from the original Dravidian from which it started, and it would be almost impossible, without the intermediate steps, to discover anything in common between this temple and that of Virūpāksha at Pattadakal We have a new order of things entirely;

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it is all angles, and the result of these being carried right up the tower is that the latter is chopped up into innumerable little blocks, each with its own mosaic of lights and shadows. This arrangement, though novel, is by no means so pleasing as the square-planned towers; it loses vigour and motif, and is weak and almost insipid. The storeyed arrangement has nearly disappeared, but is still traceable, there being six storeys above the cornice and between it and the crowning member.

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This angular arrangement in the plan has been repeated in some of the pillars. We have already found it in pillars at Naṇṇeśvara at Lakkuṇḍi and Virūpāksha at Aihoḷe.¹ There are, perhaps, no pillars in Chālukyan work that are designed with more complications than these (Plate CXXIX and Fig. 35), and they must have required the utmost amount of patience and care in their chiselling. The pillars of the *maṇḍapa* are of the same style as those in Kāśiviśveśvara at Lakkuṇḍi, though not so elegant or quite so graceful in outline (Fig. 35).

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¹ Fig. 15.

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Fig. 35.—Pillar in the hall of Doḍḍa-Basappā temple, Dambaḷ.

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Over the entrance to the shrine is a beautiful architrave which is most elaborately sculptured (Plate CXXVI). The central figures have been knocked out, but similar architraves, elsewhere, leave us in no doubt as to what figures occupied this space. They were Brahmā, Śiva and Viṣṇu, the one or the other of the last two being placed in the centre according to the dedication of the temple to Śiva or Viṣṇu. The conventional tails of the *makaras* are masterpieces of florid arabesque. The whorls and lines have an ease of flow which is quite free of all restraint or hardness of outline. The little figures above are the regents of the eight points of the compass, each being seated upon his own *vāhana* or vehicle. Beneath this, and before the shrine doorway, is a finely carved doorstep or *ardhachandra*. These two objects are altogether in the dark, and can only be properly seen by the aid of a lamp.

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Standing in the main hall, against the back wall, are three loose figures, one being that of Brahmā with his five heads and his goose *vāhana* beside him; the others are of Sūrya (Plate CXXX).

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As at Kāśiviśveśvara there were two doors and two porches to this temple—one on the south and one on the east. The latter has been very elaborately decorated with filmy bands of fine carving up the sides, but has been very much destroyed, what remains being encrusted with old whitewash. Before the east door is an extension, roughly built, covering in a colossal bull which faces the shrine.