The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c8.s6: Temple in the Field to the South of the Village
The Chālukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c8.s6
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Temple in the Field to the South of the Village
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In the field, under revenue No. 270, to the south-west of the village of Aihoḷe, stands another old temple (No. 9) of the same heavy massive style, but having its shrine as a separate compartment from the hall (Plates XIII—XVIII). Otherwise the general characteristics are the same. The outer walls are very similar to those of the last, having the same mouldings and the same plain surface between the plinth and the cornice. The śikhara, however, takes more of the older curve of the Bhuvanēśvara temple, that of Huchchimalli-Guḍi being considerably straighter in outline.
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An advance upon the last temple are the niches round the shrine walls, one on each face. These contain the Vaiṣṇava sculpture Narasimha, in the back or principal niche, and the Śaiva image of Bhairava in the north niche. The image from the south niche has been removed. The temple faces the east, at which end is the entrance porch, supported upon four massive pillars. It will be seen that the two back pillars are placed against the front wall and touching it, in this respect differing from Lāḍ Khān and Huchchimalli-Guḍi where they stand away from the walls. They are still separate pillars, however, and are not pilasters as in later temples.
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These pillars are adorned with pairs of figures standing out in relief, as on the pillars of the porch of Lāḍ Khān. On a great slab forming the ceiling of the porch is a group representing the tāṇḍava of Śiva. The great cornice of the porch is formed of a heavy roll moulding, quite a quadrant in section, the underneath side of which is ribbed like the eaves of Kailāsa at Ēlūrā; and, like the latter, the centre and corners are decorated with rich flowing arabesque in low relief.
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Fig. 10.—Interior of temple No. 9, Aihoḷe.
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The hall of the temple is divided, longitudinally, into a central nave and two side aisles, as in the last two temples described, the central roof being raised, by a deep sculptured, entablature, considerably above the lower sloping roof of the sides. There are two freestanding pillars on either side, which, with the adjacent pilasters, support the running architrave. Cross slabs, laid over from one entablature to the other, close in the roof, the under surfaces of them being carved. But the three slabs which occupied the three middle bays, one in each, are missing, and the remainder have been pushed up together towards the shrine end. These slabs have been identified, however, with three found in private possession at Dhārwār. Their measurements correspond to the spaces in the respective bays, and their carvings with similar ones in the same positions in two other old temples at Aihoḷe of the same class. The stone is the same, being that of the sandstone of the neighbourhood, in which all these temples are built. It was known that these slabs were carried away, with a fourth one, from the Bādāmi neighbourhood over forty years ago by a judge at Dhārwār, and were set up in his garden there, where I found them. They are illustrated on Plate XVII. At that time, all the old temples in the village, which were not in use as such, were occupied by people as dwellings, and could not well be rifled like this one, lying deserted and ruined in the fields. In the other two similar temples, it is found that the sculpture of Brahmā is in the ceiling bay next the shrine, with Śiva in the central one. This was probably the order here, Viṣṇu on Śeṣa, the narrowest slab, being nearest the entrance doorway.
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On the face of the entablature and cross beams separating the three bays from one another, are small groups of sculptures. Those in the first bay from the door represent, generally, the avatāras of Viṣṇu, while those in the central bay show the aṣṭadikpālas or ‘Regents of the eight points of the compass’ of which two, Varuṇa and Nirṛiti, are missing, the beam being broken off. Agni and Kuvera have interchanged places. A description of these Regents will be given later on in connection with their frequent occurrence in mediæval temples. There are no such sculptures in the bay nearest the shrine; this was, probably, never finished.
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Running the whole length of the entablature, on either side, are two richly sculptured foliage bands. The lower, with its undulating stem and leaves, has been a very favourite form of ornamental band all down through the centuries of temple building. The upper one, in the form in which we see it here, was only used in very early work and may be seen largely used on the great tope at Sāñchi. There is a very natural look about the unconventional soft vegetable forms of the stalks, leaves and flowers in these bands which is lost in the harder and more geometrically-cut curves of later ornament. Above this runs a frieze of little dwarf figures, such as are seen in Śiva’s gaṇa in the caves, in all sorts of eccentric and grotesque attitudes. They are possessed of great verve and abandon, so different to the stiff stereotyped figures of later times (Plate XVIII).
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The pillars are much plainer than those of Lāḍ Khān, and more like those in the temple beside the Kont-Guḍi, only that the band and medallions have not been carved with arabesque as they are there. They were possibly left unfinished (Fig. 10). What these could have been, had they been fully decorated, is seen in the case of the two middle pillars in the lower storey of the Tin Thal at Elūrā, which are most richly carved, on the plain square shaft, while all the rest in the cave are simple squared blocks without a line of relief upon them.¹
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¹ Cave Temples of India, Plate LVIII.
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Upon the dedicatory block above the shrine door is Garuḍa, who holds the ends of the tails of two Nāga figures which trail down the door mouldings to the bottom of the door on each side, where they reverse upwards again with human bodies, each crested by a three-hooded snake. There is a great dressed block of stone still lying in the otherwise empty shrine which has the appearance of having been part of a square altar or seat on which an image had been placed; it is certainly not part of a *linga*. There is little doubt but that this temple was, like the others that have been described, originally Vaishṇava. There is a *dvārapāla* upon each pilaster on either side of the entrance to the shrine. That on the north side is Śiva, but the one on the south side has been mutilated; it was probably Vishṇu.
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The method of roofing the halls of these temples is worthy of notice. The central nave is covered over with great flat slabs lying across from one architrave to the other, and the side aisles are covered by similar slabs which slope downward to the outer walls. As the stones are not so closely and smoothly dressed as to make the joints watertight, the joints are covered by long narrow stones. To prevent water running in under these to the joints, they are hollowed below, while the two adjacent edges of the roof slabs are grooved to receive them. The one thus lies over and fits into the other like the half pot tiles in ordinary native roofing.
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Upon the front of the tower is the usual slab bearing the representation of the *tāṇḍava*, but it just lies loosely against the tower, and, like that of Huchchimalli-Guḍi is, doubtless, a later addition. On the north side of the temple is a short inscription in letters of the ninth or tenth century. On the south side is another in letters of the seventh or eighth century which seems to record the name of an architect. It runs thus: "Hail! There has not been, and there shall not be, in Jambudvīpa, any wise man, proficient in (the art of building) houses and temples equal to Narsoba." This is, possibly, the name of the man who had charge of the work of the restoration of the building when it was first converted to Śaiva worship.
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Fig. 11.—*Dvārapāla* in temple No. 9, Aihoḷe.
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There has been a temple on the south side of the last, but all that remains of it now is the shrine doorway and the seat or throne of the image. This building stood at right-angles to the last and faced the north. The doorway, as seen on Plate XIV, is decorated in a very simple fashion, but Gaja-Lakshmi occupies a block the whole width of the doorway above. On either side, below, is a great waterpot with foliage issuing from it and hanging over the sides. On the outer side of each waterpot is an elephant with its trunk coiled round the foliage, while, on the inner, squats a little fat Kuvera-like figure. On the front of the image seat is a well-sculptured peacock, with its crest and long tail, which would denote that the temple was dedicated to Sarasvatī. It thus occupies exactly the same position with regard to the other temple as the later temple of Sarasvatī does to the temple of Trikūṭēśvara at Gadag to be described further on.