The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c7.9

c7.9

The main characteristic of the Dravidian or Pallava style is the storeyed or horizontal arrangement of the towers. That of the northern is its perpendicular arrangement, the reduplication being obtained by vertical additions clustering around the main tower, and of vertical bands up the centre of each face. The Chālukyan builders, while retaining the storeyed arrangement of the Dravidian, reduced the height of each storey, introduced more of them, and covered them with so great a profusion of ornamental detail that they eventually became so masked that, in later examples, they are not, at first glance, apparent. At the same time they borrowed ideas from the northern tower, and so manœuvred the central panels or niches on each storey to form a more or less continuous vertical band, thus simulating the vertical bands up the centre of each face of the northern tower.