A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c8.114

c8.114

Certain temples near the Tungabhadrā river situated in the western part of the Ballāri (Bellary) District, Madras, wedged in between Mysore territory on the south and the Nizam’s Dominions on the north, form the subject of an excellent monograph by Mr. Rea, entitled *Chalukyan Architecture*. The title is so far justified that the buildings were erected to the order of Chalukya kings in the twelfth century. But the style is a modification of the Dravidian or Southern, not of the Deccan or Mysore style called Chalukyan by Mr. Fergusson. The plans are rectangular, not star-shaped, and the towers are distinctly Dravidian in design. The buildings, as Mr. Rea correctly observes, ‘exhibit a preponderance of Dravidian forms. They might best be described as an embodiment of Chalukyan details engrafted on a Dravidian building.’ Although the statues, individually regarded, are not of high merit, and present much of the grotesqueness of commonplace Hindu sculpture, the ornament, considered as a whole, is superb. It is impossible, we are assured, to describe the exquisite finish of the greenstone or hornblende pillars, or to exaggerate the marvellous intricacy and artistic finish of the decoration in even the minutest details. The ornament is generally completely undercut, and is sometimes attached to the solid masonry by the most slender of stalks, producing the effect of an incrustation of foliage on the wall. Both the intricate geometrical patterns of the ceilings and the foliated work covering every other part of the building exhibit the greatest possible exuberance of varied forms boldly designed and executed with consummate mastery of technical details. No chased work in gold or silver could possibly be finer, and the patterns to this day are copied by goldsmiths, who take casts and moulds from them, although unable to reproduce the sharpness and finish of the originals.