Aihole
About the city
The architecture of Early Western Chalukya reflects diverse influences from neighboring areas. For example, as the Blue Guide (p. 331) explains, curved towers decorated with blind arches are found in central and western India; pilastered walls with panel inserts are a southern Indian style; while the Deccan style includes balcony seating, angled eaves and sloping roofs, and elaborately carved columns and ceilings. Readers can find, in the following pages, many examples of mixed styles, often on the same temple. For example, in a temple, the left hall is Dravidian (s. India); the middle hall is Rashtrakutan; and the tower is Deccan.By way of showing the unity within this diversity, Huntington (p.337) identifies some typical features of Early Western Chalukyan architecture. These include mortarless assembly, an emphasis on length rather than width or height, flat roofs, richly carved ceilings, and, sculpturally, an emphasis on relatively few major figures, which tend to be isolated from each other rather than arranged in crowded groups. The aesthetic sensibility of sculpture from this period also seems to retain a certain "classical" quality - the term, by the way, is currently out of fashion - whose impulse does not carry over into later periods of Indian art.
Aihole is located near Badami in the state of Karnataka. The names of the temples are based on recent usage, and do not reflect their original dedications.
Aihole is a glorious part of India and a trip to this great center of medieval Indian art and architecture would make you aware of a great heritage. Aihole is situated on the banks of the river Malaprabha. The cave temple of Ravana Phadi stands all by itself backed against the rocky hill out of which it has been carved. Plan your trip to Aihole and fix
This was the capital of early Chalukyas (6th to 8th centuries A D). Situated on the banks of Malaprabha River, Aihole is well known as the cradle of Hindu temple architecture. There are about 125 temples devided into 22 groups. Temples of Durga, Ladh Khan, Gowda, Suryanarayana, Konto and Ramalinga swamy are sone of the important ones. Aihole is 34 km from Bagalkot.
Once the capital of the early Chalukyan dynasty (6th to 8th centuries), Aihole is a picturesque village on the banks of the Malaprabha River. Variously called Ayyavole & Aryapura in the inscriptions, Aihole is historically famous as the cradle of Hindu temple architecture. There are about 125 temples divided into 22 groups scattered all over the villages and nearby fields. Most of these temples were built between the 6th & 8th centuries and some even earlier.
Only mere traces of a fort dating from the 6th century can be seen today. A large number of prehistoric sites have been found in Morera Angadigalu, near the Meguti hillocks in Aihole. Excavations near some temples have yielded traces of antique pottery and bases of structures constructed with bricks of pre-Chalukyan times. More temples are being excavated every day bearing witness to the vigorous experimentation on temple architecture which went on at Aihole more than 14 centuries ago.