Mangalesha dedicates the Vishnu cave temple at Badami
In 578, the twelfth year of the reign of his elder brother Kirtivarman I, the Chalukya prince Mangalesha dedicated to Vishnu a cave temple cut into the sandstone cliff of Badami, the Chalukya capital. Its inscription is the only firm date for the four cave temples of Badami — three Hindu and one Jain — whose reliefs of Vishnu, Shiva and Harihara are landmarks of early Chalukya art.
- Date
- 578year known
- Place
- Badami cave templestoday: Badami, Bagalkot district, Karnataka, India · South Asia
- Participants
- Mangalesha, Chalukyas of Badami
- Threads
- South Asia (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Badami cave temples; Badami Cave 3; Badami caves; Maha-Vishnu-griha; Пещеры Бадами; Пещера 3 в Бадами
Cave 3, the Vishnu temple, has a pillared veranda and hall cut deep into the rock. Its reliefs show Vishnu seated on the coils of the serpent Shesha, Vishnu as Trivikrama striding across the worlds and as the boar Varaha, and Harihara, half Shiva and half Vishnu. The inscription, dated to the full moon of the month Karttika in year 500 of the Shaka era and to the twelfth regnal year of Kirtivarman I, records that Mangalesha made the temple and his gifts to it. It is the only precisely dated cave at Badami, and by fixing Kirtivarman’s accession in 566–567 it anchors the early Chalukya chronology. Mangalesha, a devotee of Vishnu, succeeded his brother around 591–592 and around 610–611 lost his throne and his life in a war with his nephew Pulakeshin II.
Cave 1 is dedicated to Shiva, with a relief of the dancing Shiva with eighteen arms, and Cave 2 to Vishnu; both are dated to the late 6th or early 7th century. Cave 4, carved later in the 7th century (or, according to some scholars, in the 8th), is Jain and shows the Tirthankaras. Together with the temples of Aihole and Pattadakal, the Badami caves are a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage status as the ‘Evolution of Temple Architecture – Aihole-Badami-Pattadakal’.
Connections
Related events
- The later caves of Ajanta under the Vakataka king Harishenabetween 460 and 480 – between 480 and 550 · South Asiarock-cut sanctuaries of the Deccan: the Buddhist caves of Ajanta and the Hindu and Jain caves of Badami
- Pulakeshin I fortifies Vatapi: the rise of the Chalukyas of Badami543 · South Asiathe cave was cut at Vatapi, the capital fortified by Mangalesha’s father Pulakeshin I in 543
Adjacent events in the thread
- Varahamihira compiles the Pancha-siddhantikabetween 505 and 587 · South Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britainbetween 410 and 449 – between 550 and 625
Eastern Europe
- The Turks take Bosporusbetween 576 and 577
- Early Slavic cultures: Prague-Korchak, Penkovka and Kolochinc. 450 – c. 700
- Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv: the legendary founding of Kyivbetween 500 and 700
Middle East and Egypt
Africa
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Chenla absorbs Funanbetween 550 and 600 – between 627 and 637
- The inscriptions of Purnavarman, king of Taruma in western Javabetween 400 and 600
- Gold pendant copying a coin of Antoninus Pius at Óc Eobetween 152 and 600
- Óc Eo, the port of Funanbetween 1 and 100 – between 601 and 700
North America
- Basketmaker III: pottery, beans and the bow on the Colorado Plateauc. 500 – c. 750
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
Latin America
- The great drought of 563–594 and the crisis of the Mochec. 563 – c. 594
- The burning of Teotihuacan’s ceremonial centrebetween 550 and 650
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Badami cave temples
- Wikipedia (English): Mangalesha
- Wikipedia (English): Kirttivarman I
- Wikipedia (Russian): Пещерные храмы Бадами
- Harle J. C. The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent. — 2nd ed. — New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.