We were based in Badami today, and planned to visit the temples at Pattadakallu and Aihole and return to Badami to spend the night. The day's travel would be around 70 km, which is like a day's commute in Delhi.
For anyone wanting to visit this belt of temples, one can stay either in Badami or in Aihole and commute the rest. Given our travel plan, we should have stayed Night 1 at Badami and Night 2 at Aihole, and then carried on to Hyderabad. Ah well, the imperfections of road trip planning...
Both Badami and Aihole have KSTDC Mayura hotels, which are passable. Badami is a bigger town and has other options, but Aihole might not have alternatives.
Before we launch into the temple narrative, it is worth mentioning that while driving on the roads here, we noticed two phenomena. One, miles and miles of millet fields. We saw grains spread out over one side of the road, probably being dried, causing a serious traffic hazard. Cows are walking over them, and the occasional tire grinding them, I'm sure, and they are being scraped into big sacks for transportation. Both jowar and bajra rotis being made in small roadside hotels are a common sight. The second crop the fields are full of is sugarcane. Tractors pulling two trailers like a train, struggling up the mildest of slopes, transporting the cut stems to sugar factories, is also a common sight.
So why do these bunches of temples exist?
Yesterday we saw the Badami caves, established in 6th century, forming the Badami Chalukya dynasty, and having Badami as a capital for some time.
Pattadakal represents the high point of an eclectic art which, in the 7th and 8th centuries under the Chalukya dynasty, achieved a harmonious blend of architectural forms from northern (Nagara) and southern (Dravidian) India. An impressive series of nine Hindu temples, as well as a Jain sanctuary, can be seen there.
Aihole is a former walled city, that was a regional capital under the Chalukya dynasty. The city was at the height of its power and prosperity in the 6th to 8th century CE, when many of its early Hindu temples and shrines were built.
Notable rulers of the Chalukya dynasty include Pulakeshin I, Pulakeshin II, and Vikramaditya I.
Ideally all three locations need half a day each, minimum. All three places are UNESCO heritage sites and maintained by ASI.
Pattadakal temple complex (10.00 am)
Travelling for around 30 mins from Badami, we reached Pattadakal. Luckily, all the temples are in a single complex. Out of the 6-7 temples (all Shiva), Virupaksha temple and Mallikarjun temple are the most impressive in terms of structure and carving intricacies, both inside and outside. The pictures below are representative and not a catalogue of the temples, which is easily obtained from the net nowadays.
Aihole temples (12.00 noon)
There are 8-9 temples in the temple complex here, the Sri Durga temple being the most famous. Our parliament house is said to be inspired by this temple. Apart from the same, the Lad Khan temple (one Muslim soldier took refuge here), and a few others in the complex are quite famous.
In fact, even a drive through Aihole will show up ancient temples around every bend, coexisting with ramshackle huts. The total numbers may be more than 100. We went to an abandoned (not maintained by ASI) group of around 30 small temples called Galaganatha temples, all Shaivite, that were just growing with the grass in a field.
I feel this group of three temple complexes are worth visiting over two days. Very few of them hold live service now, but that does not prevent people, especially schoolchildren, I was happy to see, from thronging the grounds. Really impressive.
We had lunch at KSTDC Aihole and returned to Badami by 3.30 pm. (Regarding the Kannada-style biriyani, Panna kept saying "It's different").
We now need to stock up on our energies for a long long drive to Hyderabad tomorrow.
Photo credits: Panna Rashmi Ray