Now Shilpa took over the steering and my co-brother sit back
and relaxed, as expected it’s started raining heavily and offering challenge to
novice driver. After an hour of drive we reached Badami around 1:00PM.
This place got its name Badami (Almond in Kannada) because
the color of the sandstone hills surrounding this place resembles to the color
of the almond. Badami is the capital of Early Chalukyas who ruled Karnataka in
6th to 8th century before the Rashtrakutas.
Badami is famous for its four cave temples dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva and Jain Teerthankar. These caves are not
located on the base of the hills but at some altitude above the ground level, so we need to climb around 40 steps to reach the first temple.
Cave 1: This
temple is dedicated to lord Shiva and it’s believed to the oldest among the
four and approximately carved in 578AD.
On the left hand side of the entrance there is statue
of the door keeper holding trishula in his hand. Just below his feat we can
view the sculpture showing elephant and Bull with the common head.
On the right of the
entrance there is a unique Shiva statue in the Tandava
dancing pose with 9 pairs of arms featuring 81 mudras of bharatanatyam.
Just adjacent to this there is a small passage where idols
of Mahishasuramardini, Kartikeya and single idol of baby with four different
positions is carved.
Next section of the temple is having 2 main attractions, on
the right hand side there was a carvings of Ardhanareeshwara with sage Bhringi
(the skeleton like figurine) and Nandi on left and Parvati on right.
Story of Bringi’s maya
“Sage Bringi considered that Shiva’s Grace the ultimate
source for existence. He was an ardent votary of Lord Shiva to the exclusion of
any deity in the worship including Parvati! He refused to worship Shakti, a
woman. Even during his daily worship, he would circumbulate only the Lord
ignoring Mother Shakti, with a flashing spark of arrogance.
The divine couple wanted to enlighten the sage and hence
assumed a unique form sharing his body with Parvati. The couple took the form
of Ardhanareshwara and stood unified inseparable to every atom. Even then the
egoistic sage took the form of a bee (Bringa is a Sanskrit for Bee and the sage
came to be called Bringi because he once became a bee) and tried to pierce
through the body of the Lord so that he could go around only the Shiva part.
In every human body the static force of Shiva constitutes
the bone and the skin and the dynamic force of Shakti triggers the blood and
flesh. Goddess Shakti, being the power as the name indicates, pulled out her
energy from Bringi's body. Now he was a mere skeleton and was even unable to
stand. The Lord pacified Parvati and gave the sage one more leg to stand. The
sage soon realized his folly and understood that life becomes dynamic only by
the blending of both grace and force which are not contradictory but
complementary to each other.”
On the left side of the temple we can find carvings of
Harihara accompanied by Lakshmi and Parvati
Ceiling of this section is also having a beautiful carvings
of five hooded Nagaraja sitting inside the circular coil of his tail.
Cave 2: This cave
temple is dedicated to lord Vishnu and most of the Vishnu avatars has carved in
this temple.
Both the sides at the entrance has a carving of kubja ganas (Lilliput)
if you observe the below images all the lilliput’s having different hair styles;
this shows peoples at that time have the knowledge of different variety of hair
styles.
Varaha, the boar: The Boar incarnation is the third incarnation of Vishnu. He appeared in order to defeat Hiranyaksha, a demon who had taken the Earth (Prithvi) and carried it to the bottom of what is described as the cosmic ocean in the story. The battle between Varaha and Hiranyaksha is believed to have lasted for a thousand years, which the former finally won. Varaha carried the Earth out of the ocean between his tusks and restored it to its place in the universe. Sculptors shows his excellence by carving all the details of Varaha avatara in this sculpture.
Vishnu’s fifth avatar Vamana is beautifully narrated in this
sculpture. At the bottom of the sculpture we can see vamana asking king bali for 3 feets of land, and when king promissed to grant, small vamana keept his two feets one on the entire earth and other one on the entire heaven.
Puzzle on the pillar:
There are 3 images carved on one of the pillar which narrates a puzzle, the first image on the left hand side having 3 heads, 4 hands and 4 legs by closing this image partially we can see 3 humans in different position as showing in the center and right hand side images.
Matsya Yantra :
On the ceiling of this cave temple there is wheel decorated with the fishes seems to be it’s a matsya yantra or matsya chakra
On the ceiling of this cave temple there is wheel decorated with the fishes seems to be it’s a matsya yantra or matsya chakra
Gandharva:
In the same section we can find flying gandharva couples on the ceiling.
In the same section we can find flying gandharva couples on the ceiling.
Cave 3: This cave
temple is also dedicated for lord Vishnu and is the biggest among the four.
Inscriptions at the entrance of this temple describes that it was constructed
by Mangalesha in 578 AD. This cave is ~70 feet's wide and ~100 feet's depth and
the entrance is viewed like a 70mm movie film.
Satyasraya Vishnu:
This is one of the unique sculptures because Lord Vishnu with seshanaga is usually carved in the sleeping position but here the sculpture is in sitting position mostly resembles to King Satyasraya. This indicates that people of that time treats king like a god.
This is one of the unique sculptures because Lord Vishnu with seshanaga is usually carved in the sleeping position but here the sculpture is in sitting position mostly resembles to King Satyasraya. This indicates that people of that time treats king like a god.
Narasimha:
Cave 4: The last cave temple dedicated to Jain teertankara.
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Just opposite to these series of cave temples there is a lake called Agasthya Lake and also there is a Bhoothanatha Temple (This is the place where our bollywood star Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai got married while shooting Guru movie)
There were some more good temples on the bank of this lake but due to the shortage of time we were not able to visit them. Overall this journey is wonderful and collected lot of glimpses from the history and returned back to hubli around 8:00PM.
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