Badami

Badami has been selected as one of the heritage cities for HRIDAY - Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana scheme of Government of India.

History

History

Pulakeshin I an early ruler of the Chalukyas, is generally regarded as having founded the Badami Chalukya dynasty in 540. An inscription record of this king engraved on a boulder in Badami records the fortification of the hill above 'Vatapi' in 544. Pulakeshin's choice of this location for his capital was likely due to strategic considerations, as Badami is protected on three sides by rugged sandstone cliffs. His son Kirtivarman I and his brother Mangalesha constructed the cave temples located there. The Agastya lake (formerly Vatapi lake) is a man-made lake, a water infrastructure project completed in the 7th century, likely as a strategic source of water for the capital and around which many Hindu temples were constructed.

Kirtivarman I strengthened Vatapi and had three sons, Pulakeshin II, Vishnuvardhana and Buddhavarasa, who were minors at the time of his death. Kirtivarman I's brother Mangalesha ruled the kingdom, as is mentioned in the Mahakuta Pillar inscription. In 610, the famous Pulakeshin II came to power and ruled between up to 642. Vatapi was the capital of the Early Chalukyas, who ruled much of Karnataka, Maharashtra, parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh between the 6th and 8th centuries.

Under the Badami Chalukyas, Badami emerged as one of the regional centres of art in the Malprabha valley – a cradle of Hindu and Jain temple architecture schools. Both Dravida and Nagara styles of temples are found in Badami, along with those in Aihole, Pattadakal and Mahakuta. Many of the temples in Badami, such as the Eastern Bhutanatha group and the Jambulingesvara temple, were built between the 6th and 8th century. They are key to understanding the development of temple architecture and arts, as well as the Karnata tradition of arts around the mid 1st-millennium CE.

When Pulakeshin II was defeated by Narasimhavarman of Pallavas in 642CE, the Pallava army descended upon the city of Vatapi, indulging in the riches accumulated over generations by the Chalukyas. The royal palace was ransacked, men were slain, women taken captive, and temples stripped of their treasures. A later oral tradition claims that among the spoils was the revered ‘Vatapi Ganapati’ idol, now celebrated in Carnatic music. This idol was allegedly transported to the Uthrapathiswaraswamy temple near present-day Nagapattinam in Pallava territory. As the city burned, its survivors—immigrant preachers, architects, traders, officials, and laborers—gathered whatever they could and fled, not to return for many years. Narasimhavarman Mahamalla seized the victory pillar that Pulakeshin II had once erected in the city after he had defeated Harsha and Vengi, and brought it to Kanchi. A Pallava inscription, written in their script and still found in Badami, proclaims the attack as a fierce retaliation for Pulakeshin's past conquests.

These sites also contain many increasingly sophisticated temples and arts from the Rashtrakutas and Later Chalukyas, such as the Northern Bhutanatha group of temples and the Yellamma Temple, completed through the early 13th century. Thereafter, states George Michell, this region was ravaged and temples ruined by invading armies of the Turko-Persian Delhi Sultanate.

Badami and other sites in the Malprabha region were fought over by the Hindu monarchs of the Vijayanagara Empire and the Turko-Persian Sultans of Deccan. The Vijayanagara emperors commissioned expanded fort walls in Badami and elsewhere. Many ruins, the fort and some well preserved temples in high hillocks survive and attest to the rich heritage of Badami and nearby sites from these centuries. The Turko-Persian sultanate rule that followed the Vijayanagara period forcefully and aggressively islamized the site. This is attested by two monuments here. One is the Markaj Jumma near the entrance of the cave temples and structural temples. It has the 18th-century tomb of Abdul Malik Aziz. The other Islamic monument is also of modern era – the dargah of Sayyid Hazrat Badshah near the Upper Shivalaya.

Inscriptions

Badami has eighteen inscriptions, with important historical information. The first Sanskrit inscription in early chalukyan script tradition, on a hillock dates back to 543 CE, from the period of Pulakeshin I (Vallabheswara), the second is the 578 CE cave inscription of Mangalesha in Kannada language and script and the third is the Kappe Arabhatta records, the earliest available Kannada poetry in tripadi (three line) metre. one inscription near the Bhuthanatha temple also has inscriptions dating back to the 12th century in Jain rock-cut temple dedicated to the Tirtankara Adinatha.

Paintings

The Badami cave temples were likely fully painted inside by the late 6th century. Most of these paintings are now lost, except for the mural fragments, bands and faded sections found in Cave 3 (Vaishnava, Hindu) and Cave 4 (Jain). The original murals are most clearly evidenced in Cave 3, where inside the Vishnu temple, there are paintings of secular art as well as murals that depict legends of Shiva and Parvati on the ceiling and in parts less exposed to the natural elements. These are among the earliest known paintings of Hindu legends in India that can be dated.