Place · Western Chalukya temple
Mallikārjuna Temple, Kuruvatti
An eleventh-century Chalukya temple on the Tungabhadra whose bracket figures — madanikas of dancers and drummers under the eaves — are the finest of their kind in the Deccan, and the direct model for what the Hoysalas later did at Belur.
ShivaDynasties & capitals
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 14.910, 75.740
Worth knowing
The temple is built of soapstone on a sandstone base, which is the transition that makes Hoysala carving possible: soapstone can be worked like wood and hardens on exposure, and the Chalukya masons of the Tungabhadra country worked out what could be done with it first.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Mallikarjuna Temple, Kuruvatti”. Adam Hardy, Indian Temple Architecture: Form and Transformation (1995); Epigraphia Indica for the Chalukya and Kakatiya records.
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