Hampi Chronicles 3 - The Coronation complex

George Michell, the famous historian and architect, in his interesting article , talks about visiting Pattadakal from Aihole in the 1960s. There were no roads and he has to walk along the River Malaprabha and wade in the water at the end of that arduous trek to reach Pattadakal at that time.

And it is no better today. The road from Aihole, if it can be called that, is nothing but gravel and there are patches of motor-able road in between for few meters before it transforms to gravel again. The route is through the mountains and still impoverished villages and fields of corn in between. 

However, what lies at the end of this 10 kms is worth that effort.

The complex at Pattadakal

Pattadakal - the place where the Chalukyas crowned themselves as undisputed kings of their vast kingdom, is a big complex of multiple temples built a little later than Aihole but with a much more refined architecture and representing the culmination of the Chalukyan builders striving to achieve perfection.

Nagara Style

There are still temples with both with the Nagara style and Dravidan styles in it - telling us that that question was never settled. But the place is full of temples - big and small - and inscriptions in Kannada, Sanskrit and probably Telugu as well. The place needs a lot of time to really go through each and every part of it.

What does this reminds of?

River Malaprabha flows on one side with a very visible bend towards the North. It is not impossible to imagine the Chalukyan royals floating down in yachts for their coronations or for visiting the temples. However, it takes a very fertile mind to think that in the mid day sun surrounded by stone structures emitting heat.

Pattadakal has many striking temples and sculptures. But what struck me most was the twin temples of Virupaksha and Mallikarjuna. Both were built by the twin queens of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya II. I was trying to place why that temple looked familiar and realized much later that it resembled the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchi. It is proof again the influences of art between the Chalukyas and the Pallavas.

The Chalukya and the Pallava Shiva - check the similarity in execution

Not just that, while walking around, came across the sculpture of the stylish Shiva. Strikingly similar to the one in the Vaikunta Perumal temple and Kailasanatha temple in Kanchi, it is stylish in its own way and has some subtle differences in execution but is proof enough that there was a lot of exchange of ideas and execution between the Chalukyas and Pallavas. I would even dare to conjecture that there may have been common sculptors working in both places.

The Chalukya (left), Pallava (Right below) and the Chola (right above) - The continuity of a tradition

The other sculpture which has a continuity from Chalukyas is the Lingothbavar. The style of showing Shiva as a Lingam while Brahma and Vishnu search for the top of His head and Vishnu as Varaha digging to find His feet is a common sculpture in all the Chola temples and I've seen the same in Kanchi as well in the Pallava temples. And finding one in this complex is thrilling. It is the way of representation of Lingothbavar that is similar and seems like this thought has pervaded the sculptures from the 6-7th century AD of the Chalukya-Pallava period till the 11th century Cholas. The continuity of this way of representation says a lot about the tradition of the architecting in those days in the Southern India.

Couples - We had fun posing like the sculptures!

Scenes from Mahabharatha

Apart from these, the temples were actually a big art gallery. Every pillar and nook and corner of the temples are filled with friezes of scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharatha. And of course, as in any other temple, there are scenes of amorous couples abound in the mandapas as well. It was interesting to see the various poses stricken by them and the headdresses, ornaments and the way they were making the stances.

Kids posing like the Ukra narasimha behind

Vikramaditya II - probably the greatest Chalukya rulers since Pulikeshin II, and his queens contribute to most of the temples in Pattadakal and it must've been time of the area at the zenith of its glory. The complex also has a partial victory pillar of him - extolling his various conquests and victories over the Pallavas.

The Victory pillar

After walking around for a couple of hours, it was already time past lunch and so we decided to go to have some lunch and reach our next destination - in search of an inscription.

Hampi Chronicles - 1 - A Crying Bride

It has been years since I've been planning a trip to Hampi. For some reason, the travel eluded me - until now. The inaccessibility of the place is one big reason. There is no direct train connection from Chennai, there are no airports nearby serviced from Chennai and the drive is too long to enjoy the pleasures of the place. And of course, the consideration to go somewhere the kids would like to go and many other reasons meant that it was always in the bottom of the bucket list.

So it was until this year, when we decided to visit - come what may. Of course, the exam dates, the summer classes for the kids and the yearly trips to Madurai and all meant a tiny window to go for a vacation and we did exactly that (although Sibi ended up losing the first day of class!).

The onward journey was nothing exciting - got a connection at Guntakal to go to Hosepeta. It is a small mining station with nothing to go for it and luckily we booked our stay in a village called Kamalapura near Hampi. Kamalapura is what you can call a village's village and there is a ASI museum and that's that.  But as an entry point into Hampi, it has its advantages.

Hampi, on the first look, is not very impressive. The mountains full of boulders and the ruins - here and there - look nothing out of the ordinary. However, knowing the history a little, it is easy to understand what it all meant a few hundreds of years back and the place enchants the moment you start walking around the ruins.

The ruins were the result of the desertion of the city by the Vijayanagara ruling class , once the war at Talikota was lost. The allied Sultan's armies took their time to reach the gates and plunder the city for six months ensuring that there never will be another such city in the same place. It is impossible not to think of the fate of Carthage when that story is told.

Day one, after the travel , we decided to visit just the Virupaksha temple and the surroundings. The weather was hot and keeping everyone hydrated was the major task in the 3-4 hours we spent.

Virupaksha temple, to say it mildly, was a huge disappointment. The old temple has been pretty much lost in the conservation efforts of the ASI and what is now passing for the Virupaksha temple has probably nothing to do with the one from the times of Vijayanagara.

What makes me mad is that, if the ASI thinks it can conserve the temples and ruins by giving them a new color and 'repairing' the sculptures, they should at least do it in an aesthetically sensible way. The yellow color of the Virupaksha temple towers is such that, the moment you see it, you are just revolted. The same travesty that has ruined the great Chola temples in Tirubuvanam is just happening again here. However, as we found out later, ASI is doing a better job at other places in Hampi.

So, the moment I saw the temple, all I wanted was to get out of the place. However, we saw a marriage party entering the temple and the marriage mandapa in the temple was quite beautifully decorated. So, we decided to watch the marriage a little to see how it is done here.

What was shocking though was that the bride was incessantly crying standing near the mandapa. Tears were flowing down the cheeks and there is no one else who seem to be bothered about it. The groom seem to be a middle-aged person and the lady, probably in her late teens. The initial thought was some kind of a local tradition for the bride to cry but that does not make any sense. We were intrigued and watched the ceremony with unease and left the place before the ceremonies were complete.

It was easy to be judgemental in that place but without knowing what was going on , it was difficult to be that as well. For the next 3 days in Hampi, we kept inquiring the auto drivers, the car drivers, the guides about this and everyone seems to be saying that it may be a second marriage for the guy or the bride may be genuinely unhappy with the match - there was no good reason we could find to feel good about it. It was something that lingers on even after the trip is done.

So after Virupaksha, we walked down the huge Hampi bazaar and saw the huge monolithic bull. By this time, the kids have rented a couple of bikes and in the middle of the day heat, were happily riding around the empty bazaar. It was something to imagine the bazaar filled with merchants selling various stuffs in its heyday. Again, the bazaar is being maintained badly with no care taken and at some places, it is on the verge of collapse.

 We took to the mountain seeing the directions to the Vitthala temple and saw the majestic Tungabadra flowing in between the mountains of boulders. When we tried to go near the water, this sweet old man warned us in Kannada that there was a death at the same place last week and not to get into the water. We thanked him and walked back.

After that 4 hours spent in the middle of the day in scorching sun, there was no energy left and we just took a stroll in the Kamalapura village - which was an euphemistic way of saying that we took a 10 minute walk. So after spending an hour in the hotel pool, the day ended.