The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c37: Banavāsi
The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c37
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Contents
- c37.s1 The Temple of Madhukēśvara — 9 parts
Banavāsi
The Temple of Madhukēśvara
c37.s1.1
BANAVĀSI is situated eighteen miles south by west from Hāngal. It is a straggling village on the left bank of the Vardā river, and is a very ancient place. The old walls, built principally of brick, and which are now represented by great mounds, broken here and there by the roadways through them, do not embrace anything like the whole extent of the present village. Even in early times, when these were intact, buildings of sorts existed in no small number without the walls, as brick foundations and other evidences prove. We might, then, safely conclude that these walls were those of an inner citadel.
c37.s1.2
Banavāsi was the chief capital of the early Kādambas, and its conquest by the Chālukya king Kīrtivarman I. is mentioned in the inscriptions, when it was known as Vaijayanti. Later on, it was under the Kādambas of Hāngal whose family god was Jayanti-Madhukēśvara. But before these times it was an important place, for it was to Vanavāsi that the Buddhist teacher was deputed, in the third century B.C., shortly after the great council which was held at Patliputra in the eighteenth year of Asoka. It is mentioned by Ptolemy under the name of Banauasi. The earliest mention of the place in the inscriptions is in the Aihoḷe inscription of A.D. 634-5. It was in the vicinity of Banavāsi that the five Pāṇḍavas are supposed to have resided during their exile, and this is mentioned in an inscription at Baḷagāmve. The Banavāsi province held twelve thousand towns and villages during the time of the Chālukyas.
c37.s1.3
The temple of Madhukēśvara is now covered with whitewash, red-lead and plaster. What appear to be the oldest remains in the place are the ruins of several old brick stūpas outside the town to the north-west. We opened two of these, but found that they had been previously dug into, and quite a third of their height cleared away. The brick-work had been well and regularly laid. The diameter at ground level of the largest stūpa was found to be about thirty yards. The bricks were of a very old type, being very large and flat.
c37.s1.4
In the courtyard of Madhukēśvara are two principal temples, which are quite close to one another, but not quite parallel, making an angle with each other of nearly seven degrees. There is nothing very interesting in the buildings themselves. At the temples are two very good pieces of stone carving, though of no great age, namely a litter or *chārpāi*, kept in a room on the south side of the court, and a throne which stands beside the doorway within the larger temple. There are, lying about, several pillars and other fragments of an older and more ornate temple than the present ones; and, in the entrance to the court, within a niche, is installed part of the shaft of one such pillar as an object of worship.
c37.s1.5
Coeval, perhaps, with the brick *stūpas* is a large slab preserved in one of the small shrines which surround the courtyard. It is an upright slab of black stone upon which is carved, in bold relief, a *nāga* or five-hooded serpent, while round the margin or frame runs a short inscription in letters which seem to belong to the second century A.D. It records the gift of a *nāga*, a tank and a monastery by Mahābhōji Śivakhadanāgasiri, the daughter of the great king. The *nāga* was made by Naṭaka, the pupil of Āchārya Idamōraka of the town Saṁjayanti.¹
c37.s1.6
¹ *Indian Antiquary*, XIV, 331.
c37.s1.7
Without the courtyard, and before the temple, stands a very large ‘Jaganātha’ car, and near by are several small ones. These are all decorated and drawn in procession down a great broad street through the village on a certain day of the year, when the images from the temples are given their annual outing. These great cars are a prominent feature in temple processions in the Kanarese districts and southern India, and there is hardly a village that does not possess one at least.
c37.s1.8
In and around the temple of Madhukēśvaradēva are several inscribed slabs. One of these records a grant in the year A.D. 1068; and there are Vijayanagar inscriptions dated in A.D. 1368 and 1399. The inscription on the carved litter or cot for the god, already mentioned, runs thus: “In the year *vibhava*, in the dewy season, in the month of Māgha, in the bright fortnight, on Wednesday the day of the *Śivarātri*, this handsome litter of stone, intended for the festival of spring, was given to Śrī-Madhukēśvara by king Ragu of Sōdā (probably Sonda) at the prosperous city of Jayantipura, in the pavilion used as a hall of audience.” The date is probably A.D. 1628.²
c37.s1.9
² *Indian Antiquary*, IV, 207.