The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c33: Dēgāmve

The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c33

Language: English

c33.s1 The Basti or Kalla-Guḍi — 9 parts

Dēgāmve

The Basti or Kalla-Guḍi

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DĒGĀMVE is about twenty-five miles south-east from Belgāum. The temple, known as the Basti or Kalla-Guḍi, is situated in the middle of the village. It is a decorated mediæval temple constructed upon a rather unusual plan. The building consists of a long pillared hall, running from north to south, in front of three shrines on the west side, the middle one projecting forward into the hall in advance of the other two (Plates CXXXI—CXXXIV). To what three deities the temple was originally dedicated it is difficult to say, for the images upon the blocks over the shrine doors are perplexing. Over the central one is the peacock—Sarasvatī's *vāhana*—and one would naturally expect to find her image within.¹ But there is now an image of Lakshmī-Nārāyaṇa. There is no mistaking the peacock, for it has the large ornamental tail and crest as in the representation on the front of the seat of Sarasvatī in her temple at Gadag (see Fig. 3). The south shrine has an image of Sarasvatī herself, upon the block, with four arms and hands, holding the *aṅkuśa*, *pāśa*, *mālā* and book, but in the shrine is an image of Viṣṇu. Again, over the north shrine doorway occurs an image of Mahākālī, and, within the shrine, Mahākālī's image is set up. This may be the original image, and it is possible the three shrines held three goddesses, namely, Sarasvatī, Lakshmī and Mahākālī, the consorts of the triad of deities so constantly met with in these temples, especially above the entrances to the antechambers—Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva.

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¹ It is also the *vāhana* of Kārtikēya as we found upon the temple of Huchchimalli-Guḍi at Aihole.

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But there is an inscription in the temple which records the building of the shrines of Śrī-Kamalānārāyaṇa and Śrī-Mahālakshmī, with their porticoes and spires, in the village of Dēgāmve, which had been granted in perpetuity to Brāhmaṇs, by Tippoja the *sūtradhārin*, or architect, of the god Baṅkēśvara, son of Holoja of Hūvina-Bāge. It ends up with a salutation to Śrī-Gaṇadhipati. Another, in the same temple, is a grant by Kamalādēvī, queen of the Kādamba chief of Goa, Śivachittavīrapermāḍidēva, to Brāhmaṇs of the village of Dēgāmve, in *Kali Yuga* 4276 (A.D. 1175).

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The first inscription might refer to one shrine containing the image of Nārāyaṇa with Lakshmī in his lap, such as we now find in the central shrine, or it might refer to two shrines with the god in one and his consort in the other. As the inscriptions are engraved upon the wall on either side of the entrance of the central shrine it is most probable that that shrine alone is referred to. But, again, this is a shallow chamber, without an antechamber, built against the back wall, and there is no indication of it outside at the back of the temple. The other two shrines are built in the ordinary way, off the hall, with their antechambers (see plan, Plate CXXXIII). In any case it seems certain that the three deities were represented in the temple, either by images of themselves, their *saktis*, or both as in the central shrine. In old Kanarese inscriptions we have several references to the worship of this triad, and, as we have seen, they occur over the antechamber doors of most temples.

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In addition to the entrances into the hall opposite the end shrines—there is none opposite the middle one—there is another at the north end, around which is a broad band of boldly-carved scrollwork which is strikingly like that which is often found in the earlier temples and the later caves (Plate CXXXII). In the corresponding position at the south end of the hall, instead of a doorway, there is, on the outside, a niche containing a great *nāga* slab on which two serpents entwine, a male with three hoods and a female with one. It reminds one much of the similar very old one at Banavāsi.

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The pillars in the hall, as will be seen in the photograph (Plate CXXXI), are of a different type to those at Ittagi, Baṅkāpur, Tiḷivaḷḷi and others we have been considering. There is very little lathe work in these. Instead of the round bulbous section in the middle of the shaft, there is, here, a square block of the same dimensions, in plan, as the square pedestal below.

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The large square bays of the ceiling, in front of the two end shrines, have domed ceilings which are beautifully carved in ascending concentric cusped rings, from the centre of which depends a great lotus ornament (Plate CXXXIV). This is surrounded by a circle of six smaller pendants. These ceilings are very like some in the marble temple of Vimala Śā on Mount Ābū.

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The inscriptions referred to above are on three large slabs, built into the wall on either side of the central shrine, as it projects into the hall, two on one side and one on the other. Upon a pillar at the south end of the hall is another inscription.¹ It is quite possible that these refer to the central shrine only which was built in between two older temples and linked them up into one.

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¹ Bombay Br. of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, Vol IX, p. 294.