Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c6.17

c6.17

Although many features are common to both, there is a very marked difference between the style of the early Dakhan temples and the Chālukyan² of the same age, and this reveals itself mostly in the *śikhara*, or towers, and the pillars. The Chālukyan style was confined to a much smaller extent of country, and, the land of its origin and development being wedged in between that of the older Drāviḍian of Southern India and the Indo-Aryan of Northern India, it is, as might have been expected, a composite or mixture of both, there is, as partaking of the characteristics of both. Between the temples of the Dakhan and those of the north there is but little difference, and this is mainly apparent in the towers and pillars. The towers in North Gujarāt,³ for instance, are clustered *śikharas*, which are made up of a central main tower with smaller ones clustered around and applied to its sides and corners (See Fig. 3). This pattern also pervades Central and Northern India. The Dakhan *śikhara* rises as a single tower, with fretted vertical bands running up each of its four faces. The corners, between the bands, are filled up with horizontal tiers of miniature *śikharas*, diminishing in size to the top, which, in the treatment they have received, have lost their individuality and have become mere decorative detail. There is a third variety of the northern *śikhara* which is made up entirely of vertical