The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c42: Kanara Temples

The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c42

Language: English

c42.s1 Bhatkal — 15 parts
c42.s2 Hadavalli — 1 part

Kanara Temples

Bhatkal

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W E have now to consider a class or style of temple architecture which stands apart by itself and has little in common with the Chālukyan work described in the previous pages. It is noticed here for two reasons, firstly, because there is not enough of it to form a volume for itself, and secondly, because, though North Kanara was under the Vijayanagar kings when these temples were built, it was previously more or less an integral part of the Chālukyan possessions. Within the Bombay Presidency this class of work is found chiefly in the town of Bhatkal and its neighbourhood. It is found again further south, at Mudabidri in South Kanara, but so far away that it does not come within the purview of the present volume.

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The town of Bhatkal, situated at the extreme southern end of the Bombay Presidency, upon the coast, is snugly ensconced in a thick grove of palm trees and is surrounded by rice fields, the rich vivid green of whose young crops fill the terraced valleys among the hills, which here run down from the ghāts in broken spurs to the seashore. The town is about two miles up a tidal creek from the sea. The streets are narrow and crooked and the houses are quaint, those in the town being of a more substantial sort with tiled roofs, while those on the outskirts are generally of mud and thatch. Surrounded, as the latter are with their cocoanut groves, they are infinitely more picturesque than the former. Bhatkal has seen better days, and it would seem to have been at one time a religious centre. The number of old temples, mostly in ruins, and of about the same age, attest its former importance; and, judging from the fragments lying about—a finely carved column beside the Sultāni Masjid, for instance—there have been temples here far exceeding, in elaboration of ornament and richness of carving, any that now exist. Capitals, columns, beams and images lie about uncared for, or only so far as they can serve some present purpose. In the middle of the town, lying alongside the gutter of the public road, is the shaft of one of those lofty columns which are so strikingly characteristic a feature of the temples in these parts.

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The most notable features of these temples are their plain sloping roofs and the peculiar arrangement of stone screens which close in the sides (Plates CXLIII—CLI). With the excessive rainfall in Kanara it was, no doubt, found that temples with the type of roof as used above the *ghāts* was far from being waterproof—in fact, they would be veritable sieves—and so it was necessary to devise a more suitable arrangement. The depth to which the eaves project over the sides, and the screens support this assumption. The monsoon rains, along the coast, beat in with such force that it was necessary to protect the interiors from driving rain, and at the same time allow plenty of fresh air which was so necessary to counteract the hot steamy atmosphere of closed interiors. There is a great likeness between these buildings and similar ones, built in wood for the most part, found in Nepal.¹ It is not likely, however, that there is any other connection between them than that the same conditions brought about the same type of structure. But these roofs may be seen repeated in every thatched cottage in Bhatkal, even to the double storey. It is seen in the wooden building, the Jāmi' Masjid, a modern construction, which is, perhaps, more like the Nepalese buildings than the stone temples. This method of roof construction is, therefore, no more than a copy in stone of the thatched roofs of the country, rendered necessary by the exigency of the climate and made possible by the ease with which the great laterite slabs could be quarried on the spot. The joints between the slabs lie over the sloping supporting beams whose upper surfaces are channelled all the way down to catch whatever rain should percolate between the joints. This is very apparent in the case of temples like those of Khetapai-Nārāyaṇa and Śāntappā Nāyaka Tirumal. The barred screens which enclose and protect the sides have their prototype in the large coarse screens hung up in the front of the verandahs of most of the houses here, after the fashion of Venetian blinds, where they are made of broad battens of the split *supāri* palm strung together with rope. At the same time they are very reminiscent of the Buddhist rail.

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¹ See *History of Indian and Eastern Architecture*, Revised Edition, 1910, Vol. I, 286, and Vol. II, 76

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The *stambhas*, or columns, which generally stand out before these temples are another characteristic feature, and are elegant objects in themselves (see Fig. 42). Their shafts are always of single blocks—never built in sections—that of the large *basti* being a single block of twenty-one feet six inches. The Jaina columns are, as a rule, surmounted with a tiny pavilion or *chhatri*, on four little pillars in which is placed a *chau-mukha*, or four small images of Jinas seated back to back. Vaiṣṇava ones will have a Garuḍa, and Śaiva a bull or a *triśūla*. Columns before Brāhmanical temples often carried a brazier on the top, in the place of an image, with, sometimes, brackets on the shaft for lights. The Jains could not have these fire columns, or *dīpdāns*, since the lights would attract insects and burn them, and the taking of life was more abhorrent to them than to Hindus. As these temples have no tall spires to indicate their whereabouts, the lofty columns serve the same purpose.

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At Bhatkal there are over a dozen old temples of sorts, among them being one in the Dravidian style. There are also two mosques, not very old, a number of Kanarese inscribed slabs, and three old European tombs dating back to 1637 and 1638. The principal temples are the two mentioned above and the large Jaina *basti* known as Jattapa Nāyakana Chandranāthēśvara Basti. The former are in use and are in a fair state of repair save the colonnade round the inner courtyard of the first, which has mostly fallen; the last has been forsaken and is partly ruined.

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The Chandranāthēśvara Basti is situated in the fields to the north of the town, and is composed of two blocks of buildings joined together by an intervening porch, the whole running east and west and facing east. The main block, that on the west, is in two storeys. The ground floor contains the principal hall, supported, within, upon six pillars, enclosed with perforated screen walls, and the shrine with its two parallel chambers extending across the whole width of the building (Plate CXLVII). The floors of each of the antechambers and the shrine rise one above the other from the hall floor which is lowest. Save for the elaborately carved *dvārapālas*, on one either side of the doorways of the outer antechamber the interior is remarkably plain. Above the doorways, on the lintels are little seated Jinas. Within the shrine were three altars for images which have been thrown down, but the lower portions of two of these lie within the shrine. Below one is carved the waterpot, the symbol of the *tīrthankara* Mallinātha, while below the other is the bull, the symbol of Rishabha-nātha. The floors have been paved.

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Fig. 38.—Pillar in Chandranāthēśvara temple, Bhatkal.

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The eastern block, which is really a great porch to the temple, somewhat after the plan of the great outer *gopuras* of the later southern India temples of the same period, has a shrine on either side of the through passage in the middle. The outer door of that on the south side has *dvārapālas*, but not the other. This block has an upper storey, but the great hall has not.

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The pillars in these temples are very shapeless when compared with those in the older buildings which we have been studying in the previous pages. There is an indecision of outline and an infirmity of purpose about them; they are ill-proportioned, squat and clumsy, and, if designed by descendants of the old Chālukya builders, they show a great falling off and general decadence in their art. The same may be noticed in the figure sculpture.

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Fig. 39.—*Dvārapāla* from Chandranāthēśvara temple, Bhatkal.

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Another large temple, in the same style, is that of Ketapai Nārāyaṇa Dēvasthāna (Plates CXLIV—CXLIX), measuring 34′ 9″ by 17′ 10″, which is situated within a courtyard surrounded by a colonnade. This is a Vaishṇava temple with an image of Vishnu in the shrine and Gaja-Lakshmi over both the outer and the shrine doors. The building faces the west.

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The pillars are very squat indeed, and approximate a pyramidal form (Plate CL). It is curious how the little pot-capital takes one back again to Buddhist work in the pot-bases and capitals of the great Kārli *chaitya*: but, of course, this is mere coincidence. In the hall is a sculptured ceiling, the general design of which is one square within another, with the *ashṭadikpālas* in the corners of the squares (Plate CXLIX). On either side of the shrine door are several Vaishṇava sculptures among them being Krishna charming the animals with his flute, Krishna purloining the clothes of the bathing women, and Garuḍa. Around the plinth of the temple, outside, are panels of sculptures representing the Rāmāyaṇa scenes Standing in front of the temple is a tall Garuḍa column (Fig. 42).

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Jośi Śaṃkara Nārāyaṇa’s temple is a small structure in two blocks joined together, each with a pyramidal roof. According to an inscription, it was built in A.D. 1554 (Plate CXLVI). Śāntappā Nāyaka Tirumal’s temple, similar to the preceding, was built in A.D. 1555. Aḍike Nārāyaṇa’s is another of the same class but is much ruined. Raghunātha Devasthāna, said to have been built in A.D. 1590, is a late temple in the Dravidian style (Plate CLI).

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There are some twenty to thirty inscribed slabs in and about Bhatkal, some of them being connected with the temples, and mostly belonging to the sixteenth century.

Hadavalli

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At the village of Hadavalli, 11 miles E.N.E. from Bhatkal, are three more of these flat-slab-roof temples. The temple of Chandranātha Svāmi at the village is a very plain building measuring 69' 6" by 26' 9" over all. There is a standing nude Jaina image of Chandranātha in the shrine. A portion of the north side of the temple has fallen, but it is still in use. Gūndin Basti is about half a mile from the last. Within the shrine is a very well-carved and well-preserved seated Jina with canopy and throne—Pārśvanātha with his nine-hooded snake. The temple is neglected and is given over to the bats. The third temple is on the top of Chandragiri hill, close by, but is in ruins.