The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c7.5

c7.5

With the Dravidian temples, then, as their starting point, several early specimens of which had crept into the districts around Kukkanūr, Paṭṭadakal, Aihoḷe and Bādāmi, the Chālukyan builders gradually introduced changes, chiefly by an admixture of details and ideas from the northern type of building—which then existed, side by side, with the Dravidian, in those localities—until the original forms were almost lost under their alterations and additions. The Chālukyas, from the time of Pulikēśin II., at least, until their temporary eclipse by the Rāshṭrakūṭas in the eighth century, continued to use the Dravidian style, for which they most probably obtained builders from the south. During the Rāshṭrakūṭa period, about two hundred years, little was done in the way of temple building in the Kanarese districts, and what was done was, perhaps, rather repairs than original work. The Rāshṭrakūṭas had their own works in hand in the north, notably the great excavations at Ēlūra, which extended from the Das Avatāra cave to the extensive group of Jaina caves around the Indra and Jaganāth Sabhas. These included the great caves of Kailāsa, Rāmeśvara and Dumār Lēna, which must have absorbed every skilled workman in the country round, from north and south. There is no doubt that a fresh impetus was given to temple building on the return to power of the Chālukya family under Taila II., towards the end of the tenth century, and it is from this time that we notice the first definite departure from the pure Dravidian types of the time of Vikramāditya II.