Badami cave temples
Interesting facts
- The 18 arms of the Cave 1 Nataraja combine into about 81 dance poses, which art historian Alice Boner read as the cosmic wheel of time.
- Beside the entrance of Cave 1, a bull and an elephant share one carved head: seen from one side it is an elephant, from the other a bull.
- Cave 1 includes Bhringi, an emaciated devotee of Shiva, carved with ribs, skull and limb bones shown in striking anatomical detail.
- Inscriptions indicate that Cave 3 was inaugurated on a full moon day, 1 November 578, and some of its carvings even bear the sculptors' signatures.
- The ceiling of Cave 2 is carved with a wheel whose sixteen spokes are fish, set within a square frame.
- The guardians flanking the entrance of Cave 2 hold flowers rather than weapons.
- The steps leading up to Cave 1 are carved with dwarfish ganas in different poses, as if they were holding up the floor of the cave.
- In the Jain cave, a 12th-century Kannada inscription on the pedestal of a Mahavira image records the death of a person named Jakkave.
- A smaller cave across the lake holds a seated figure whose identity is still debated: the Buddha, an avatar of Vishnu, a Jain saint or a king.
- In 2013 officials reported another cave near the main group with 27 rock carvings and water flowing from it all year round.
Why it is worth it
Four temples have been cut straight into the red sandstone cliff that rises above the Agastya lake at Badami, in northern Karnataka. Each opens through a columned verandah into a hall and then a small square shrine deep in the rock, and the caves are linked by flights of steps and terraces that look out over the water and the town. Their walls carry some of the finest sculpture of early India: Shiva dancing as Nataraja with eighteen arms, Vishnu as the giant Trivikrama taking his cosmic stride, Vishnu as the boar Varaha lifting the earth goddess from the ocean, and Harihara, half Shiva and half Vishnu, fused into one figure.
Badami is the ancient Vatapi, capital of the early Chalukya dynasty, which ruled much of Karnataka from the 6th to the 8th century. The town lies at the mouth of a ravine between two cliffs, beside an artificial lake held back by an earthen dam faced with stone steps, and it is flanked to the north and south by forts. Cave 3, the largest and highest, is dedicated to Vishnu, and an inscription in old Kannada records its dedication by Mangalesha in 578, which makes it the oldest firmly dated Hindu cave temple in India. Its hall reaches some 15 metres into the hill, and traces of painting on its ceiling are among the earliest surviving fresco work in Indian art. Caves 1 and 2, dedicated mainly to Shiva and Vishnu, belong to the late 6th and early 7th centuries.
Cave 4, the smallest, is Jain. It was cut later, in the late 7th or perhaps the 8th century, and holds images of Bahubali standing in meditation with vines winding around his legs, Parshvanatha and Mahavira. The carving in all four caves mixes the northern Nagara and southern Dravida traditions. Together with the nearby temples of Aihole and Pattadakal, Badami turned the Malaprabha valley into a cradle of Hindu temple architecture, and the three sites appear together on India's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage.
Getting there
The caves are on the south-eastern edge of Badami town in Bagalkot district, about 30 km from Bagalkot. The nearest airport is Hubballi (HBX), about 89 km away in a straight line and roughly 130 km by road. Pattadakal is about 22 km from Badami and Aihole about 46 km.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Pattadakal Group of Monuments 14.5 km · archaeological-site
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Badami cave temples are a complex of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cave temples located in Badami, a town in the Bagalkot district in northern part of Karnataka, India. The caves are important examples of Indian rock-cut architecture, especially Badami Chalukya architecture, and the earliest date from the 6th century. Badami is a modern name and was previously known as "Vataapi", the capital of the early Chalukya dynasty, which ruled much of Karnataka from the 6th to the 8th century. Badami is situated on the west bank of a man-made lake ringed by an earthen wall with stone steps; it is surrounded on the north and south by forts built during Early Chalukya and in later times.
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