The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c8.s3.18

c8.s3.18

Though they do not help us so much in our study of the development of what is known as the Chālukya style from the early Dravidian, yet we must take up a series of temples of about the same age as those we have been considering, which have been built after the Northern style, at least so far as their towers are concerned. At Aihoḷe and Paṭṭadakal the two styles overlap. Though the two types of towers, used in these early temples, differ entirely from each other, the rest of the buildings differs in no respect in their other features, and they were probably built by the same people at the same time. The builders of those days seem to have had no particular reason for selecting the one tower or the other: certainly, no temple, that we know for certain was originally Jaina, in this district, has a tower in the northern style, but Brahmanical temples, both Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava, are found with both. In the case of Jaina temples, the northern class of tower did not lend itself so readily to the formation of an upper shrine.