The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c7.47

c7.47

We have practically no examples of civil, domestic or military architecture left to us from Chālukyan times. It is probable that they never built, even their palaces, in solid stone masonry, but were content with mud, brick or wood, supplemented with plaster, whitewash and paint. The reason for such impermanent structures may have been that the rulers of those days considered it very risky to sink their wealth in expensive buildings of this kind which, at the hands of an enemy—and they swarmed around their borders—would not be respected but thrown down and demolished. With their sacred buildings it was otherwise, for, they all being Hindus, until the Muḥammadans appeared, the temples were equally sacred to friend and foe. Now and again, but very rarely, some damage was done to these buildings locally when bitter sect rivalry was acute, but there was never anything equalling the devastation caused by the iconoclastic soldiers of Islām when they were let loose over the land.