The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c7.1

c7.1

A KIN to, and contemporaneous with the old styles of Hindu architecture as practised in North Gujarāt and the Dakhan, from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries, is the Chālukyan style of the southern parts of the present Bombay Presidency, or, more correctly, the Kanarese country.¹ It is, in fact, not easy for those not conversant with the study of these styles to distinguish readily the one from the other. The term Chālukyan does not refer exclusively to work carried out by that family of rulers, but embraces all that was erected within the country under their sway, either under their own auspices or that of their feudatories, or of other families who, for a time, supplanted them in the government of those districts—for the same architects or their descendants, no doubt, worked for all upon the same lines. The remains of buildings of this style cover an extensive range of country. The Dhārwār District, which may be taken as the birthplace of the style, is crowded with them, there being hardly a village without an example. From this they extend away north-easterly into the Nizām's territory beyond Kalyāṇi, one of the later capitals of the dynasty, while northwards they run into the Bijāpūr and Belgāum Districts where they mix, imperceptibly, with the remains of the so-called "Hemādpanti" temples. Southwards they penetrate into the old Hoysaḷa territory, right into the heart of Maisur where, especially at Haḷebīḍ, the finest and most ornate specimens of the style, in its later development, are to be found. On the east they cross the Tungabhadrā and pass into the western parts of the Bellary District, while, to the west, they are practically bounded by the Western Ghāts, though a few have strayed into the Koṅkaṇ below.