The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c6.s1.19

c6.s1.19

Vikramāditya II. left inscriptions upon the Durga temple at Aihoḷe and the temple of Lōkēśvara (Virūpāksha) at Paṭṭadakal. Those upon the latter are important, for, the temple itself being the largest and finest of its class in these districts, they give us an excellent landmark in the chronology of these buildings and the history of their architecture. We are told in these inscriptions that the great temple of Lōkēśvara was built for his chief queen, Lōkamahādēvī, in commemoration of his having thrice conquered the Pallavas of Kāñchī. At the same time we learn that his second queen, a sister of the first, also had a temple built in close proximity to the other, which was named, after her, Trailokyēśvara. In studying the former building we shall find it very interesting to compare it with one of about the same age at Conjeveram and the great monolithic temple of Kailāsa at Ēlūrā. Vikramāditya is said to have carried his warlike expeditions far to the south, and, after leaving an inscribed record in the temple of Rājasimhēśvara at Kāñchī, to have set up a pillar of victory on the shores of the southern ocean. He made grants for Jaina worship at Lakshmēśvara, the old Raktapura, which place seems to have been a great centre of the Jainas at that period.