History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s3.1

v1.c19.s3.1

Till the discovery of the small Buddhist chaitya halls at Têr and Chezarla and elsewhere, already described (p. 126), there was only one temple in India which gave us any hint of how the plans of such halls were related to those of Hindû and Jaina temples. Fortunately, however, its evidence is so distinct that there could be very little doubt about the matter. The temple in question is situated in the village of Aihole, in Bijâpûr district, in western India, not far from the place where the original capital of the Chalukyan sovereigns was situated, and near the caves of Bâdâmi on the one hand and the temples of Pattadakal on the other. Its date is uncertain to some extent, since an inscription on its outer gateway recording a grant to the temple, during the reign of Vikramâditya-Satyâsraya, is undated;¹ and there were two Chalukya kings of this name—one ruling between A.D. 655 and 680, and the other between 733 and 746. But the grant was to a temple already established, and even if made in the 8th century the fane might well be of fifty or eighty years earlier date, as its architecture would indicate. It is thus not only one of the oldest structural temples known to exist in western India, but in fact one of the only three yet discovered that can with any certainty be said to have been erected before the beginning of the 8th century.