Aihole Revisited

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI “L’ORIENTALE”

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NAPOLI 2012

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Consiglio Scientifico:

Marilina Betrò (Università di Pisa), Salem Chaker (Aix-Marseille Université – INALCO, Paris), Riccardo Contini (Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”), Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit (Freie Universität Berlin), Birgit Kellner (Universität Heidelberg), Rudolf Leger (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main), Ulrich Pagel (SOAS, London), Robert Rollinger (Universität Innsbruck), Adriano Rossi (Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”), Maurizio Tosi (Università di Bologna), Roberto Tottoli (Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”), Wang Xiaoming (Shanghai University – East China Normal University, Shanghai).

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INDICE

Scritti in onore di Pietro Mander

a cura di Palmiro Notizia e Francesco Pomponio

Premessa 3

Profilo bio-bibliografico di Pietro Mander 5

LUCIANO ALBANESE, Adad e gli Oracoli caldaici …………………………………… 13

ODOARDO BULGARELLI, L’archivio paleo-babilonese di Ipqu-Sîn e la collezione di tavolette cuneiformi della Banca d’Italia ………………………………………

27

FRANCO D’AGOSTINO, Ti ricordi, Pietro? In margine alla prima campagna di scavi ad Abu Tbeirah, Iraq meridionale ………………………………………………

41

MANUEL MOLINA, PALMIRO NOTIZIA, Five Cuneiform Tablets from Private Collections 47

MASSIMILIANO NUZZOLO, Man Approaching God: Some Remarks on the Egyptian and Mesopotamian Rituals of the Opening/Washing of the Mouth ……………..……

65

ANTONIO PANAINO, Nuove riflessioni sulla stella dei Magi tra fonti canoniche e apocrife …………………………………………………………………………

77

FRANCESCO POMPONIO, Some Considerations on Rīmuš …………………………… 99

ANNUNZIATA ROSITANI, The Role of the nadiātum of Šamaš and of Some Officials in Old Babylonian Sippar Organization of Agriculture Work …………………

113

GABRIELLA SPADA, I modelli di contratto nell’edubba paleo-babilonese. Un esem-pio di contratto di adozione ……………………………………………………

133

LORENZO VERDERAME, Sedie, troni e portantine nell’antica Mesopotamia ………… 149

GIUSEPPE VISICATO, Two Governors of Umma called Surus-kin in the Sargonic Period 169

Note e Discussioni

BRUNO GENITO, Archaeological History of Iran: the Post-Achaemenid and Hellenis-

tic Time (Archaeological Horizon in Fārs in Late Iron Age, or Iron Age III-

IV). A Review-Article…………………………………………………………...

177

R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited…………………………………………………. 211

Recensioni

Robert Hillenbrand, Studies in the Islamic Arts of the Book (Maria Vittoria Fontana)…... 223

Georg Bossong, Poesía en convivencia. Estudios sobre la lírica árabe, hebrea y

romance en la España de las tres religiones (Francesca Bellino)..............................

230 El Libro de las Plantas. Sección primera: de árboles y arbustos (al-Qazwīnī, S. XIII)

(Francesca Bellino).....................................................................................................

232 Barbara E. Barich, Antica Africa. Alle origini delle società (Andrea Manzo)……………. 234 Luciano Rocchi, Il dizionario turco-ottomano di Arcangelo Carradori (1650); Luciano Rocchi, Il “Dittionario della lingua turchesca” di Pietro Ferraguto (1611)

(Luca Berardi)……………………………………………………………………….

236 Winnie Cheng, Exploring Corpus Linguistics: Language in Action (Patrizia Zotti)……... 240

Libri ricevuti ……………………………………………………………………

243

NOTE E DISCUSSIONI

AION, 72/1-4 (2012), 211-222

R.K.K. RAJARAJAN

Aihole Revisited

The present brief communication aims to integrate the literature bearing on Aihole, in an effort to throw further light on its art historical viability and conservation measures. It also outlines some hypotheses about the Buddhist monuments of Aihole, Tamilnadu and Madhya-Bhārata in the light of recent discoveries.

An overview of recent publications on Aihole shows serious gaps in the knowledge of primary and secondary sources, which instead is vital to correct-ly put Aihole in its historical context and understand the relevance of its mon-uments and iconographies to specific Hindu, Jain and Buddhist schools. 1 However, one has to consider the objective reasons why such lapses occur. In fact, the plight of Indian researchers is not encouraging due to the fact that the libraries in India are not richly endowed with books and journals.2

Coming to Aihole, it is sad to find sculptures and architectural fragments of incalculable value scattered all over the village and lay incomprehensibly neglected. Some of these are illustrated in the present article in the hope that a thorough conservation plan is designed to give a new life to the monuments of Aihole (Map). If a good first step in this direction would be a comprehensive

———— 1 See for instance J. Soundararajan (2009), which misses a long list of relevant bibliographic

references, such as Spink (1967); Divakaran (1981); Bolon (1981); Rea (1986); Meister, Dhaky (1986); Tartakov (1997); Michell (1975, 1978); Jeyapriya (2004a, 2004b); Kalidos (2006: 253-68), and Rajarajan (2012). On the Cālukyas of Badāmī, their history and art see the following: Burgess (1874); Fleet (1884-1882); Cousens (1911); Gupte (1962); Tarr (1966); Lippe (1967, 1969-70); Ritti, Gopal (1971); Gai, Asher (1981); Williams (1981); Ramesh (1984); Tartakov, Dehejia (1984), and Buchanan (1985).

2 As Alexander von Humboldt post-doctoral Fellow in the Freie Universität Berlin during 1999-2002, I collected enormous bibliographic data in the Berlin-based libraries. I had an occasion to visit the British Museum and Library, which are true store-houses of master minds of the East and West. Absence of books and journals in Indian libraries is the main hurdle in getting the lat-est information. To give a specific example, none of the universities of Tamilnadu has biblio-graphic materials on Xuanzang. I had to consult the sources collected in the German libraries.

212 R.K.K. Rajarajan

study of these neglected archaeological remains on the model Tartakok (1997) worked out for the so-called Durgā temple, it is nonetheless a bounden duty of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to come forward with a progressive plan of lift-up programme. We visited the monuments around 2000. We are not sure whether any progress was made since then.

Aihole site plan.

Aihole Revisited 213

Names of Aihole Temples

Aihole has been a nodal point of research on Cālukyan art for the past 150 years. Now, it is open for discussion on several issues, especially with re-gard to the temples’ names (cf. Tartakov 1997). The original names of the temples of Aihole seem to have been different as they are known today.3 An inquiry into the contemporary names of temples (e.g. Hucchimalli-guḍi) is es-sential to understand their origin, which seems to trace back to local popular traditions (cf. J. Soundararajan 2009: 23):

� Gaurī, Mallikārjuna, Jyotirliṅga and Rāmaliṅga (not found in any in-scriptional source) are names of gods and goddesses that were given by the people (cf. Rajasekhara 1985: passim).

� Basavaṇṇa (founder of Vīraśaivism) and Hucchapayya (maybe a local dignitary) were names of saints that the folk associated with the temples.

� Some names are drawn from the local caste system, such as Desayar (desai), Gaudar (gauḍa), Ambigar (fisherman), Boyar (boya «agricul-tural labourers»; Nāyaka/Naiḍu sect), and nadar «barber» (nāḍār also called cāṇār or īḻava in Tamil). As reported by Minakshi (1977), the lat-ter was an untouchable caste of those times. The members of this caste climbed palms trees to extract ale. Minakshi (ibid.: 200) adds that they were not permitted to touch the coconut trees in brāhmaṇa-agrahāras due to the belief the trees may get polluted if touched by the ostracized īḻava.

� Lāḍ Khān is likely to have been a Muslim dervish who stayed in the temple before it was taken over by the ASI. Such occurrences are fre-quently reported in Tamilnadu. During the high tide of the Nāyaka rule in Maturai an Islamic fakīr is said to have occupied the moṭṭaigopuram in the Mīnākṣī temple (Rajarajan 2006: 8). The Maturaittalavaralāṟu adds that the local Hindus chased him away. The Pallāvaram Pallava rock-cut temple even today remains a dargaḥ, Maula-kā-phahād (Srini-vasan 1964: 51). Kumāra Kampaṇa, who relieved Maturai from the Sūltāns, is said to have rebuilt a temple to Śiva that had been converted into a mosque (ARE 1940, no. 220; cf. Aiyangar n.d. [1921]: passim). In the case of Aihole the Islamic fakīr seems to have been forced to va-cate by the local people. Today, no Muslim people are to be found in the village though they live in large numbers in the neighboring town-ships, e.g. Hunugund and Amīngaḍ.

———— 3 The same was the case with the Ellora caves. The Līlācaritra, a 13th century Marāṭhi work,

records Cave XV – presently known as Daśāvatāra – as Dhūmeśvara, and Cave XVI (now Kailāsa) as Manakeśvara (Ranade 1988: 108-18).


� Some of the names may have contextual implications: Cakra-guḍi («its āmālaka looks like a disc»), 4 Kare and Bile («black and white»?), Mēlina-guḍi («the upper temple on the hilltop»), Konta-guḍi (konta in Kaṇṇaḍa means «triśūla»; kōnti in Telugu is «monkey»), Veṇiyar-guḍi (veṇi means «river» and refers to Gaṅgā).

� Chikki-guḍi (chikki means «star») may derive from the stellar architec-tural decorations.

� Hucchimalli is a strange name (hucchi «mad», malli «jasmine»); it is likely to mean «a mad woman, fond of jasmine flowers».5

� The name of the Durgā temple is still a mystery (for an early photo see Fergusson 1972: 321, fig. 181), as it is said to have been originally ded-icated to Sūrya, a «magnificent Brahmanical temple that it is» (Tartakov 1997: 41-43).6 Others consider it a temple for Nārāyaṇa (Michell 1975: 32-34), Āditya-bhaṭāra, Sūrya (Rajasekhara 1985: 97) or Sūrya-Nārā-yaṇa (K.V. Soundararajan in Meister, Dhaky 1986: 49-52). Sūrya-Nārāyaṇa seems to be more appropriate due to the presence of such cult images in the surroundings. Another temple housing a mūlabera of Sūrya-Nārāyaṇa in its garbhagṛha (Kalidos 2006: I, pl. LVII.1) is found close to the Lāḍ Khan. Fallen architectural fragments are found in the vicinity of the Durgā temple, e.g. a kīrtimukha accommodating the im-age of Sūrya-Nārāyaṇa. However, Rajasekhara (1985: fig. 33) points out an inscription on the adhiṣṭhāna of the Durgā temple that reads «Śrī Jīnālaya». K.V. Soundararajan (1986: 51-52) quotes a foundation in-scription in the same temple in favour of Āditya, the śilpācārya being Kumāra. The iconographical apparatus on the bhiṭṭi and other parts of the temple relate to Śiva and Viṣṇu, as well as to episodes of the Rāmāyaṇa. The overall evidence suggests that the Durgā temple was originally dedicated to Nārāyaṇa in his Āditya/Sūrya aspect. The Sūrya-Nārāyaṇoṣṭṭaram ends with the invocation: «Śrī Sūrya Nārāyaṇasvā-mine namaḥ».

An interesting aspect of the Karnāṭa and Tamil early medieval tradition is the epigraphic record, which often registers the names of the temples as well as the names of the sthapatis (donors). We know from inscriptions, for in-

———— 4 Guḍi in Kaṇṇaḍa and Telugu means «temple»; e.g. Maṉṉārguḍi/Maṉṉārkuṭi. The root may be

kuṭi, which in Tamil means «human habitation».

5 It might be the name of a devadāsī (vestal – temple dancing girl); picci (jasmine) is a flower that might be the equal of malli in Hucchimalli (Rajarajan in press). This is however a mere conjecture.

6 These ideas about the inscriptions in Paṭṭadakkal and the Pallava-Cālukya interaction by way of war and peace were conveyed to us by S. Rajasekhara during his visiting lectures on Cālukyan art in the Tamil University at the far end of the 20th century.


stance, that the original names of the two integral wings of the Kailāsanātha temple of Kāñci are Śrī-Nityavinīteśvaragham and Mahēndravarmeśva-ragham (ARE 1888: nos. 4, 28). Also the names of the sthapatis who built the temples at Aihole, Paṭṭadakkal and Badāmī are known from epigraphic sources (Rajasekhara 1985: 203-7). In the case of ‘Durgā’ of Aihole Raja-sekhara and K.V. Soundarrajan cite different inscriptions relating to the Jain and Vaiṣṇava origins of the temple.

Aihole is a rich field for further explorations on which archaeologists and art historians may have new interpretations to offer. Every new attempt in this direction is expected to reveal something unknown of the historical and archi-tectural heritage.

Town-plan on Religious Grounds

It is a point to consider whether Aihole originally had two specific sectors for the Jain and the Hindu sects in its town plan. At about the same time, Kāñcīpuram was divided into four integral units such as Śiva-kāñci, Viṣṇu-kāñci, Jīna-kāñci and Buddha-kāñci. One wonders whether there was also in Aihole any compartmental layout of the city such as Jīna-Aihole, Buddhist-Aihole and so on. The fact that the Jain temples are clustered below the Mughūti hill suggests that this might have been a specific Jain settlement. As for Buddhist temples, though no visible evidence has so far come to light Set-tar (1969) hypothesizes the existence of a Buddhist vihāra on the hilly slopes. The situation in Aihole might be the same as in Kāñci. Xuanzang, who visited Kāñcīpuram during the time of Nsiṃhavarmaṉ I (630-68 CE), speaks of 100 Buddhist vihāras (Watters 1904: 214). Today, the only trace of Buddhism in Kāñci is represented by a few stray images of Buddhas in Hindu temples (cf. Samuel, Murthy, Nagarajan 1998: 149-56), but no extant evidence of any Buddhist monastery is found. Thus, negative evidence in the present does not disprove existence in the past. The case of the Buddhist vihāra at Nāgapaṭṭiṉam is instructive in this regards, since the only trace of it is an old documentation of its remains, which were still visible toward the middle of 19th century (Fergusson 1972: 206, fig. 116). Sāñchī in Madhya-Bhārata is rich in Buddhist monuments and ruins brought to light until recent times (Shaw 2011). We observed some such ruins on top of the Udayagiri hill a few years ago. It is on the foothills of Udayagiri that the Hindu bas reliefs and rock-cut caves are found (Williams 1983: figs. 34-46, Rajarajan 2012: 3-6, 57).

It is a mystery why no Buddhist or Hindu temples of the pre-Pallava peri-od have come to light in Tamilnadu when at the same time we get a panoramic picture from ancient Tamil literature (Jeyapriya 2004b: 292-96). In Māmalla-puram recent archaeological excavations have brought to light some brick structures, probably belonging to a Murukaṉ temple, that seem to match the


literary sources cited in Jeyapriya (2004b). Maritime archaeology has located Buddhist ruins that submerged in the Bay of Bengal in a tsunami 2000 years ago. These recent archaeological findings – still unreported – make us sure that an overall survey of Buddhist and Hindu temples by about the 5th century, which is still to be carried on, would certainly fill this inexplicable gap. Ar-chaeological evidence in the Far South is scanty when compared with Madh-ya-Bhārata (e.g. Sāñchi and Udayagiri). However, the recent findings of brick structures in Māmallapuram, the stray Buddha images in Kāñci and the dilapi-dated vihāra of Nāgapaṭṭiṉam have to be chronologically examined in order to trace the rise and fall of Buddhism in Tamilnadu. It is also worth noticing that no rock-cut temples of the type we find in western India (Ajaṇṭa, Ellora caves I to XIII, Nāśika) or even Afghanistan (Verardi 2012: 153-72) have been so far reported in Tamilnadu. Also this lacuna appears strange if viewed in the context of what Xuanzang observed in the 7th century CE (see supra).

Ecology and Temple Setting

The environmental set-up of the Aihole landscape and monuments has not changed in any way with respect to some two decades ago. The site muse-ums at Aihole and Badāmī are enchantingly set among lawns and charming gardens (pls. Ia,b-IIa) but the temples in distant hillocks and plains on the banks of the Malaprabhā are sadly and badly neglected (pls. IIb-VIII). A visit to the Jain cave on the other side of the Meghūti is indeed an adventure. One is compelled to walk or drive on a rugged road-like country pathway. That Jain cave is the home of some wonderful carvings on three walls of its womb-chamber. The presence here of a sculpted portrait of Polakeśi II is most likely (see Kalidos 2001; Rajarajan 2010: 2, fig. BW 25), which means he must have been the patron of the cave as it was the case with the Jain temple on top of the Meghūti hill with a prāsasti of Ravikīrti.7 It is our wish that the ASI may turn its attention to distant places on the hill and the village around and take care of the totally neglected temples that are slowly and steadily falling while investigators are melancholically looking at them.

———— 7 A stray sculpture, identified as a portrait of Polakeśi, was discovered among the debris and a

similar image was spotted on the left wall of the cella in the Jain cave temple. These images should be studied in detail, in order to establish their possible connection with the patron of the caves, who is likely to be Polakeśi II. Kalidos (2001) called on it the attention of the ASI when the matter was first reported in the Deccan Herald. I do not know whether in the meanwhile the huge slab from the hilltop has been moved to the site Museum.


Sculptural Fragments

During field work we spotted stray images all over the hamlet. Many such stray sculptures and architectural fragments have been removed to the site mu-seum (J. Soundararajan 2009: fig. 46) and have already been the subject-matter of brief communications in scholarly journals (Rajarajan 2002: 408-10 [Kalidos 2006: II, pl. LV.1]; Jeyapriya 2004a).8 The same should be done sys-tematically for all the neglected artifacts found all over the village (pl. IVa-b). In addition, a monograph on the stray images of Aihole would be most wel-come. Small-scale excavations around the isolated temples scattered among the agricultural fields may bring to light several fallen and broken sculptures. Ten years ago the present author did spot a rare two-headed Agni in the Rāmaliṅga-devasthānam group that was taken to the museum due to our ini-tiative (J. Soundararajan 2009: 75).9

The image of Naṭarāja reported herein is of some interest for its rarity. An instrument player as tall as Naṭarāja himself is clapping hands while perform-ing a dance enamoured of the King of Dancers (pl. VIIIa). It must be recalled that instrument players are normally diminutive (see for instance the image of Naṭeśa in Cave I of Badāmī). A miniature Gaṇapati (pl. VIIIb) appears within the kūḍu of a kīrtimukha (J. Soundararajan 2009: fig. 65). This was a common motif in early medieval art (Kalidos 2006: II, pl. LXIX.1). Jeyapriya (2004a) has worked on a stray image of this type, pointing out its unique features (cf. Kalidos 2006: II, pl. LIII.2). The present author (Rajarajan 2002) has spotted a rare Dakṣiṇāmūrti close to the Tāra Basappa temple, published in Kalidos (2006: II, pl. LV.1). These stray images either in the museum or in situ have not yet been published in any scholarly work. Writing on unreported monu-ment is more important than writing on what is already published.

———— 8 The image of Naṭarāja examined by Jeyapriya (2004a) was so captivating to the editors of the

book that they decided to have it printed on the jacket-cover. My article was published in the Proceedings of the South Indian History Congress that never publishes visual evidence. I may add here that images of Dakṣiṇāmūrti are rare in Cālukyan art. We have Yogīśvara in the Ele-phanta/Ellora circle and some scholars suggest the possibility of a link between the two (Mankodi 1988: 278-84). The Yogīśvara of Ellora (Kalidos 2006: II, pl. XXI), when compared with the Dakṣiṇāmūrti of the Pallava type (cf. Kalidos 2006: II, pl. LXXXV.2, CV), appears to be a typological parallel. Images analogous to Yogīśvara are present in the temples of Kāñcīpuram, e.g. the Kailāsanātha (ibid.: II, pl. LXVIII.1). The Aihole image that I have re-ported conforms to the Pallava Dakṣiṇāmūrti, seated in utkuṭikāsana with a hand in cinmudrā. The vaṭavkṣa and ṣis are missing. The fallen sandstone image from the main temple is too badly broken to identify the other lakṣaṇas (ibid.: II, pl. LV.1).

9 Anytime you go, this area is deserted and no one looks after the monuments. I remember we lifted the broken two-headed Agni by hand all the way to the Museum.


Conservation Plans

As for conservation, much attention is paid to the museum site and al-ready well protected monuments (pls. Ia,b-IIa), while those in the distant areas are neglected (pls. IIb, V-VII). The betrayed images that lay all around are to be moved to the site museum. There are several treasures in Aihole that perish or go into the bowels of the earth «unwept, unhonoured and unsung». A day should come when scholars of our standing shall be able to see the neglected Aihole masterpieces in museums.

I was told that the ASI was considering a plan to shift the entire village to a safe area away from the monuments. It is a good idea. Why it could not ma-terialize is a mystery. Today the entire village lies within an area below the Meghūti hill extending up to the edge of the Malaprabhā River at the far end of the monuments in the north. Within the congested huts and cowsheds of the village lay the temples called Kont-guḍi, Hucchapayya-maṭha and most of the Jain temples.10 The temples and the nearby huts present a strange blend of ar-chaeological remains and human/cattle habitation. 11 Restoration is beyond reach as far as the huts remain therein. I am of the strong conviction that in those days of the Cālukya temple building activity there would have been no residential quarters so close to the temples; cf. what the Tañcāvūr inscriptions note about the houses of temple girls in all four cardinal and intermediary di-rections away from the temple. Therefore, it would be better to build houses for the village folk to the west close to Rāmaliṅga-devasthānam, north or east of the temple complex, where there is plenty of no-man’s land which might be used for building a new village. I am sure that this kind of shifting the village is also possible in the case of the Vijayanagara’s Virūpākṣa temple complex.12

———— 10 The cattle population in Aihole, mostly consisting of buffaloes, cows and lambs, is equal to

that of the humans. Fortunately, the village-folk are so proud and respectful of their monu-ments that they do not allow their cattle-brothers to get into the monuments or the lawns, at least in the Durgā temple complex.

11 Tartakov (1997: 104) notes that a temple named Śāṅgi-maṭha was enclosed within the struc-ture of an adjacent house.

12 R.K. Parthiban (Director, Cheran School of Architecture, K. Paramatthi, Karur), a student of the Regional Engineering College, Tiruchirappalli and the Brandenburg Technological Uni-versity, Cottbus, is of the opinion that such a kind of ‘shifting the village’ is possible. He is a specialist in World Heritage Studies, UNESCO sponsored at Cottbus. He wrote on this aspect with regard to Hampi and Petra. These reports are still pending publication. We must also note the UNESCO thought of disqualifying Hampi from the World Heritage List when locally in-fluential politicians tried to erect a bridge across the Tuṅgabhadrā in order to build 5-star ho-tels. Who knows one such effort may not be taken at Aihole in the distant future?


Design for Future

More than one hundred years have gone since Alexander Rea wrote on the temples and some 30-40 years since George Michell drew the plans of the temples. The Encyclopaedia edited by M.W. Meister and M.A. Dhaky has provided a commendable architectural documentation with the help of archi-tects recruited from the Māmallapuram School of Temple Architecture. Sever-al scholars such as K.V. Soundararajan and K.R. Srinivasan have rendered yeoman service to make it a successful accomplishment. Recently, the icono-logical analysis of the monuments by Kalidos (2006) has been termed an En-cyclopaedia by the publisher. In spite of all these norm-setting projects a huge amount of work awaits art historians and archaeologists. The future pro-gramme should include the following agenda:

� Redraw the architectural plans of the temples, including those in ruins (conjectural reconstructions could be made in such cases) without ne-glecting any, following the model established by Michell (1975; see his plans, elevations and sections. Cf. also J. Soundararajan 2009: fig. 9).

� Ensure a thorough iconographical documentation of pillars and ceil-ings in each and every temple; these are unreported yet.

� Produce a report on the museum exhibits.

� Re-examine the monuments vis-à-vis the regional literature (early Kaṇṇaḍa if any) and inscriptions on the model established for the Tamil sources (Kalidos 2006).

� Examine the impact of non-Karnāṭa elements or the inter-mixture of styles.

� Isolate the non-Cālukya elements, e.g. devakoṣṭhas accommodating parivāradevatās on the bhiṭṭi or pāda and new elements such as Dakṣiṇāmūrti (Rajarajan 2002), typically Pallava (Kalidos 1997).

� Investigate why the mukhabhadra on the śikhara – as in the Virūpākṣa of Paṭṭadakkal or the monolithic Kailāsa of Ellora – is missing in Aihole.

� Redraw an isometric plan of the village and locations of the temples excluding modern private houses within the temple site; these houses should be placed at the far end of the west, north or east.

� Above all, a monograph on the Site Museum exhibits and the stray im-ages found all over Aihole (see e.g. Rajarajan 2002; Jeyapriya 2004a) is very much needed.

To be brief we need to view a new Ayyavole/Āryapura/Aihole as it was 1400 years ago during the heyday of the Western Cālukyas of Badāmī. Where was the original Cālukyan palace and where did the people live? Will archaeo-


logical exploration help in locating these sites? These are questions that hang behind the curtain of history: a task left to art historians for tomorrow. If Na-ples could bring to light the Roman monuments of Herculaneum and Pompeii (palaces, cathedrals, chapels, temples shops, marble altars, bathing chambers both hot and warm, inns for erotic plays, fertility symbols and so on, which survived the fall of volcanic ash of Mount Vesuvius) why is that not possible in Aihole and Badāmī where the great Cālukyan emperors lived? The avowed ambition of an Indian scholar is that he must be able to see an Aihole that could stand on equal footing with the several archaeological sites unearthed on the foothill of Vesuvius in Naples.

R.K.K. Rajarajan Gandhigram Rural University Gandhigram (TN) [email protected]

REFERENCES

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SUMMARY

Sometime around 2000 I happened to be in Aihole and stayed there for more than three weeks, studying the monuments. The callous neglect of monuments all over this temple-city, the


early metropolis of the Cālukyas, is the main purpose of the article. The monuments that are at walkable distance in Aihole are maintained with enchanting lawns amidst an artificial lush green while those in the distant Meghūti hill, the agricultural fields around and the Rāmaliṅga-devasthanam are utterly neglected and perish under the scorching mid-summer. Several precious stray images found all over the village should be moved to the museum. It is indeed quite odd to find the living huts of the villagers amidst the temples, particularly around the site Museum and the Lāḍ Khān temple. Conservation measures are suggested to bring Aihole to life again.

Keywords: Aihole, Cālukya, Hucchimalli, Rāmaliṅga, Durgā, Polakeśi II, Naṭarāja, archaeolog-ical conservation

R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE I

a) Site Museum, Badāmī.

(Photo by the author).

b) Site Museum, Aihole.


R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE II

a) Enchanting lawn, Lad Khan Temple Complex, Aihole.


b) Bush behind the Chikki-guḍi complex and the ruined apsidal Liṅga shrine, Aihole.


R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE III

a) View of the village infested with thorny bushes and Malaprabhā at a distance, Aihole.


b) View of the Village from Meghūti hill top, Aihole.


R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE IV

a) Neglected sculptural masterpieces, Meghuti hill, Aihole.


b) Neglected Sapta Mātkas, Aihole.


R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE V

a) Uncared Boyar-guḍi, Aihole.


b) Neglected temple on Meghūti hill.


R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE VI

a) Neglected temple on Meghūti hill, Aihole.


b) Neglected temples on Meghūti hill, Aihole.


R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE VII

a) Gauḍar-guḍi amidst a prickly bushes, Aihole.


b) Full view of the Gauḍar-guḍi observed by a melancholic investigator, Aihole.


R.K.K. RAJARAJAN, Aihole Revisited PLATE VIII

a) Nāgarāja and Naṭeśa. Stray piece, Aihole.


b) Gaṇapati within kuḍu of a kīrtimukha, Aihole Site Museum.


Stampa: Tipolito: Istituto Salesiano Pio XI – Via Umbertide, 11 – 00181 Roma – tel. 067827819 – fax 067848333

Finito di stampare: Aprile 2014

Aihole Revisited

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