The Remarkable Cave Temples of Southern India

As an architecture student in Melbourne, Australia, in the 1960s, I’d hardly ever seen a building older than a hundred years, let alone confronted a civilization of any antiquity. That changed resoundingly when I traveled to India while still at college.

During my wanderings in the subcontinent, I somehow got to hear of a remote town called Badami with wonderful temples, just the sort of place worth seeking out, though I’d never read anything about it. I checked, and there it was on the map; there was even a train connection. Taking a pony cart from Badami station into town, I marveled at the dramatic landscape of the Deccan region. Red sandstone cliffs, shattered by deep fissures into rugged profiles, reared over mud-walled houses splashed with ocher paint.

After dropping my luggage at the local rest house, I wandered through the town and came upon a vast reservoir filled with vividly green water. At one end, women washed clothes by beating them on stone steps; at the other, a small temple with a veranda jutted invitingly into the water. High above the tank were cliffs punctuated with grottoes; I later realized these were artificial cave temples cut into the rock. On the summit of the cliffs opposite rose a freestanding temple fashioned out of the same sandstone as the rock itself, perfectly blending into its natural setting. Quite simply, this was the most intriguingly beautiful place I’d ever seen; 50 years later, having traveled to so many places around India, I haven’t changed my mind.

The trip to Badami contributed to a life-changing decision: to move to London and study Indian art and archaeology. Only then did I learn that Badami had been the capital of the Chalukyas, a line of kings who ruled over most of the Deccan for almost 200 years between the sixth and eighth centuries. One of a succession of dynasties in this part of India, the Chalukyas attracted my attention because they were great patrons of architecture and art, overseeing a transition from rock-cut architecture to freestanding, structural architecture, all embellished with magnificent carvings. No one in London in the early 1970s had much idea about the Chalukyas and their art. This was hardly surprising since no example of Chalukya sculpture had found its way into a European or American collection. The same is largely true today. Only by making a journey to Badami (about 300 miles from the city of Bangalore) and nearby sites can the outstanding contribution of Chalukya architects and sculptors be appreciated.

Resource: http://www.smithsonianmag.com