Prof. George Michell’s presentation made a case for why the art of the Early Chalukyas at Badami and Pattadakal needs to be recognised and studied

Forty nine years ago, a 21-year-old architecture student from Melbourne travelled to India and somehow ended up in Badami and Aihole.

Fascinated by the architecture there, he then walked for three hours along the Malaprabha river to Pattadakal and spent time looking at the temples there. Little did he know then, that this chance trip to Badami would change his career forever.

In the field of South Asian art history, specifically, architecture, Prof. George Michell’s name is one to be reckoned with and it all began with that trip to Badami.

“I still had hair on my head back then. When I returned to Australia, I realised that I had begun to lose interest in architecture and was eager to study about India instead. I was advised to go the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. There, I was asked to choose a topic for my doctoral research and I picked the temples of Badami,” said George , who was in Bengaluru recently.

He was invited by INTACH, Bangalore, to speak on The Temples of Chalukyas at the Goethe Institut.

“It was not easy to convince the panel at SOAS about my topic. No one in London had ever heard of the temples in Badami. But, I came up with a list of reasons to explain why the temples of Chalukyas deserved to be studied. First, they marked a transition, technically, from rock-cut architecture to constructed architecture. Second, they are a set of beautifully preserved monuments of a very early date. There are more early period temples in this area than in any other site in India. Third, the temples are built in different styles next to each other. There is no other site in India where you can see the Northern, Southern and local styles built within a few metres from each other. So, the Chalukyan monuments in your part of the country, have something very special that cannot be found anywhere else in India,” explained George.

George’s presentation elaborated on the reasons he gave the committee at SOAS years ago.

It comprised measure drawings that he had taken at the site back then and beautiful photographs of the monuments at Badami, Aihole, Mahakuta and Pattadakkal, taken by Surendra Kumar, who accompanied George on his field visits.

“Badami is located at the interface between the Northern stylistic tradition and the Southern stylistic tradition of temple architecture. This is why the Deccan, as this region is called, is so important,” explained George.

Encased in red sandstone, Badami, George said, was one of most beautiful towns one could find with a landscape that had cave temples that were not natural structures but in fact, artificially carved by the Chalukyas. Spelling out the characteristics of Chalukyan sculpture, he pointed out the magnificent ‘Dancing Shiva’ in Cave 2 at Badami. “Unlike the Tamil Shiva, which has a circle of flame, this is the Karnataka Chalukyan Nataraja with 18 arms,” he explained. Dated to 578 A.D., he said, this was a rare cave temple with a date- something which is difficult to find in this part of the country.

The Chalukyas preferred the ornate when it came to their temples. With almost every panel and surface decorated with intricate carvings, stone figures depicting humans, magical motifs, fluted columns and even a mural (similar to the one found in Ajanta) depicting courtly women of the Chalukyan rulers, one would need to spend weeks trying to decipher and appreciate their architecture, said George. They also specialised in ceiling panels. One of the pictures George showed had a cobra with a human figure emerging out of the coils holding a garland which was simply magnificent.

After the rock-cut phase, came the phase of structural temples. “For reasons we still do not know, the Chalukyas began making temples out of pieces of stone built without any mortar,” he said.

He showed a picture of the Meguti Temple at Aihole which is the earliest structural temple to be found in South India. Dated to 634 A.D., the inscription at the temple says that Pulekeshin I built the temple. At Pattadakal, he explained the Dravida style structure of the Virupaksha temple and pointed out the gradual evolution of the Chalukyan style, because here was a temple that was far more complex than the ones up until now. And then, the story got even more complicated, said George, because one began to find Nagara style temples complete with amlaka and a shikhara at Mahakuta. This was the early 8 century and the north Indian style temples were being built around the same time as the Dravidian style temples. “It is clear that artists and sculptors belonging to different parts of the country were employed by the rulers to build these varying styles simultaneously. The reason behind this, of course, is not known,” he explained.

Then, with the Papanatha Temple at Pattadakal, the two styles began to become one. “It was not a fusion but a combination of styles. That is the thing with the Chalukyas: they do not repeat, they evolve, develop and combine making their period the most inventive 150 years of Indian architecture and art” he explained.

Apart from this, George also identified a local style, what he calls the Malaprabha style which has sloping roofs full of logs of stones that imitated a structure made of wood, perhaps.

An example of this style is what is today known as the Lad Khan temple at Aihole. “At the end of the 19 century, when the British went to photograph this temple, there was a certain Lad Khan living in it. I wouldn’t blame him. It is rather spacious and comfortable. That’s where it gets its name but it is actually a Hindu temple,” explained George. If one wonders why Chalukyan sculpture is not better known, the reason is because barring three panels in Mumbai and one in Delhi, there is no Chalukyan art in any museum in India, Europe or America. “Chalukyan sculpture is still in Chalukyan land and one has to go there to see it,” he explained.