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Buses from Badami to Pattadakal were not very frequent. Some one was standing at the edge of the bus stand and shouting ‘Pattadakalla.. Pattadakalla..’. I went with him to a waiting matador, which started off only after a good half hour. By the time I reached there, it was nearly 9.30am.

A section of the temple complex

Like Badami and Aihole, Pattadakal also received bus loads of children on school excursions. It is a pattern I have got used to in the last couple of days. A bus comes in honking loudly and stops near the temples. Children rush out of the bus, not heeding much to the shouts of their teachers and run towards the temple complex. They group together at the gate and unwillingly assemble in a queue when the teachers shout at them. Once the entry tickets are bought, they walk in through the narrow gate and quickly break from the line into a few huddles of friends. Suddenly temples will be full of shouts and noises within no time. Smaller children run around quickly along the temples amusing themselves, the bigger ones walk in ’style’ and get their photographs taken along with their best buddies. In a few minutes it is all over, especially if the group decides not to hire a guide. It is like a storm coming in suddenly and moving on as suddenly without causing any damage. Silence claims back its place once again in the temples.

It is slightly different when they hire guides. The ASI guide addresses a large gathering of various type of kids. The ones close to the guide listen to him with a clear expression of awe in their eyes. The backsiders are always trying to escape and looking for distraction, but are helplessly held by the glare of the teachers. The most studious once are easy to identify – they walk around with a note book in hand.

It gets as noisy as it can as long as the kids are around. But it is good to make them see these places – it definitely gives a good visual of our history and heritage; much better than just having to learn about them in the text books.

Pattadakal is a UNESCO world heritage site, and has a temple complex dating back to 8th century. It is said that a considerable amount of architecture in Southern India is borrowed from here, with Hoysalas and other dynasties taking cues from here and evolving further. I wonder if they had learning students coming into the temples in large loads those days too and make all sorts of noises, I don’t know! The complex, restored by ASI has temples in various architectural forms, which sometime seem to be experimental. There are a few tiny temple like structures that are only a few feet high, and my guide explained them to be ‘model temples’ built before the big ones were made. It is also one of the few places where both southern(dravidian) and northern(nagar or rekhanagar) style of architectures are found in the same place.

Jambulingeshwara temple. In the background is Kadasiddheswara temple

Galaganatha temple with nagar style goupra is one of the prime attractions of Pattadakal

On the walls of Kadasiddheswara temple, which is built in rekhanagar style. Walls of Rekhanagar style temple are usually plane and you see very few or no carvings.

The temples are made of sandstone. The carvings have been fading and softening over the years on the external walls due to effect of sunlight. Besides, until ASI took over the area a few decades ago, people had occupied and lived in this temple and had imparted considerable damages over the years. But ASI’s restoration work has been excellent.

Viroopaksha temple is built in Dravidian style and has many fine carvings on its walls and gopura

Carvings on a pillar of Viroopaksha temple

My guide took me around, showing me through Galaganatha, Mallikarjauna, Virupaksha temple among others. The temples with nagar architecture, like the Galaganatha temple are visibly distinct from the Dravidian architecture in the style of the Gopuras ans absence of intricate carvings along the temple walls. The Dravidian style temples consisted plenty of stories carved along its walls, primarily from Ramayana and Mahabharata, and some more on the lifestyles of those days and some erotica.

Malaprabha river with temples in the background

It took me a few hours of wandering along the temple complex, which is located right next to Malaprabha river. The location of the temples is said to be holy, since the river flows as Uttarabhimukhi(flowing from south to north), unlike most rivers that tend to flow east to west or west to east. Infact the same theory applies to Ganga in Varanasi. I walked crossed a bridge to get views of the temple from other side and spent some time there. I was planning to stay on till evening, but changed my mind sometime in the afternoon and headed to explore Mahakoota, another temple half-an-hour away from here.

Continued at: Mahakoota

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