Nostalgia set in stone

Three of the Nagara temples at Pattadakallu. Photos by Srikumar M Menon 

The Galaganatha Temple at Pattadakallu. Photos by Srikumar M Menon 

The Kashi Vishwanatha Temple at Pattadakallu. Photos by Srikumar M Menon 

Camels depicted at the Lakshmana Temple, Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. Photos by Srikumar M Menon 

Camels depicted on the basement frieze of the Keshava Temple at Somanathapura. Photos by Srikumar M Menon 

Artisan’s sketch of a camel. Photos by Srikumar M Menon 

Somasekhara Kallappa Kudachi leads the way along a dusty path towards ochre sandstone cliffs. Two langurs on sentry duty atop a large boulder seem slightly alarmed at our intrusion, and follow our progress with interest.

Closer, the cliffs appear to be cubical blocks stacked on one another. Several of them have smooth vertical faces, as if someone had sliced them with a giant cleaver.

On one of the smooth vertical faces, under an overhang, is a sketch incised into the rock. It is a drawing of Ganesha, with a peacock to his left, and a pair of camels to his right. An inscription in 8th century Kannada characters informs us that this is the quarry of Sri Dharmasangata.

We are at Shankaralingana Gundu, one of the quarries where sandstone was extracted more than 1,200 years ago, to construct the well-known temples of Pattadakallu, on the banks of River Malaprabha, in Bagalkot district of Karnataka.

Kudachi was a part of the team which discovered these quarries in the early 2000s. All around us is evidence of ancient quarrying — wedge holes for splitting stone, mason’s marks, more sketches and inscriptions, and lots of debris from stoneworking.

Several stone slabs lie stacked, as if ready for transport to some building site.

Moving past a small engraving of a camel, and a second image of Ganesha with a trishula, we encounter a drawing of a Shiva linga, with a flower adorning it, and yet another camel, seemingly in attendance.

By now, the sheer profusion of camels among the sketches is intriguing.

It is a hot day. Seeking respite from the sun, we spot the temple spires of Pattadakallu to the south. It is exhilarating to think that more than a millennium ago, this windswept hilltop five km to the north of the temples would have been a hive of activity, with stonecutters splitting sandstone and shaping them into blocks of suitable sizes, blacksmiths forging steel wedges and hammers for the masons, artisans sketching out their conceptions and planning those very temples and their sculptures.

Early monuments

The temples of the Early Chalukyas in the Malaprabha Valley are some of the earliest stone monuments in southern India.

Interestingly, there are temples in the northern Nagara as well as the southern Dravida styles among these.

Along with Mahakuta, near Badami, and Aihole, Pattadakallu too boasts of several Nagara structures. The origins of these two main styles in Indian temple architecture are shrouded in mystery. Since the Nagara monuments of the Malaprabha Valley were erected during the 6th to 8th centuries CE, somewhat coeval with the erection of temples of the late Gupta period in central and northern India, some scholars opine that this region too contributed considerably to the shaping of Nagara architecture.

In fact, this view has earned the Malaprabha Valley the sobriquet “Cradle of Indian Temple Architecture”.

Though it is probably incorrect to state that the Nagara style partly originated at Aihole, Badami and Pattadakallu, Early Chalukyan architects certainly experimented with temple form in the Valley.

The contrasting curvature and proportions of the shikharas of the Kadasiddheshwara and the Galaganatha temples at Pattadakallu show advancement from awkwardness to elegance. The Papanatha Temple even shows an attempt at fusion of Nagara and Dravida elements.

Origins of artisans

Who were the artisans who worked on these monuments, and where did they hail from?

Did the architects who planned the Nagara monuments come from northern India, or were they from nearby regions? Several artisans have left their signatures on the monuments, and clues about their nativity in these inscriptions.

For instance, while most of the artisans have inscribed their names in Halegannada script, some have also used Siddhamatrika characters to spell out their names. Prof Shrinivas Padigar, in his compilation of the inscriptions of the Early Chalukyas, suggests that the use of Siddhamatrika script might imply the presence of craftsmen from the north. He feels that Nagara temples like the Kashivishwanatha were most likely built by craftspeople from Gujarat, Malwa or Rajasthan.

The camels of Shankaralingana Gundu seem to back this hypothesis. Camels are not native to Early Chalukyan heartland, and are not part of the sculptural programme at any of their temples.

The camel entered the sculptural vocabulary of temples in Karnataka possibly as late as the Hoysala context. Camel imagery being more common in the temples of central India, it is likely that the camel sketches at the quarry were made by artisans from the north. Parts of Gujarat and Malwa were annexed by the Early Chalukyas during the rule of Pulakeshi II, making migration of artisans from these lands a distinct possibility.

However, if the camel was not meant to be part of the imagery at the temples, why were they drawn at all? We might never know, but maybe they were the artistic outpouring of an itinerant sculptor dreaming of camels from a homeland left far behind.

(The author is with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.)