Chalukyan trail..

Badami or Vatapi (Sanskrit form) was the capital of the early Chaulukyas.Pulakeshi1, one of the early kings of this dynasty built a strong fort at Badami & made it his capital in the year of 547 A.D., & from that time onwards the later kings of this dynasty built rock-cut & structural temples here for about three hundred years .

Me& my cousins decided to visit Badami museum & fort. Last 2 times when I visited I had missed this place.First we visited the Museum but as luck goes it was closed, so we decided to finish Fort Mountain, we started to climb in a very beautiful path which was surrounded by red mountains.

After few minute of walk one side of our way after few steps path just ended between 2 big rocks, squeezing through that narrow path, after a small adventure we were able to reach next part of that rock.

There we could see 2 beautiful 1 & 2 stairs towers at a very small distance, it was really a paradise even 2-3 new couples relaxing proved my guess. Without disturbing them we climbed 1st tower which was little risky & relaxed for a while.

After spending some time in this place we returned back & joined our old pathway. Once again after few minutes’ walk we took one more left deviation which ended near a ruined single temple. The location of this temple was enchanting as it is built on a spur of the rugged hills which overlooked the town of Badami.

Next we entered another part of the fort, we were little scared because one big group of monkeys were sitting in our path we put all cameras, bottles inside our bags & picked few sticks and started to walk, sensing that we were not disturbing them or harm them they were enjoying their afternoon nap.

After crossing monkey’s terrain we reached another side end of the fort. There we could get the clear view of one of the oldest & beautiful temple Malegitti Shivalaya (Early 7th century) in Badami.

Finally we reached top of the hill. There we could see many old ruined houses & temples. One beautiful ruined temple was on edge of the peak. We almost burned because of extreme heat so planned to spend our rest of targeted time in this temple. This temple consists of 2 parts namely Garbagriha & Mukhamantapa.

The basement consists of molding one of which is thicker & has Ganas carved on it. The wall of the temple consists of plasters at regular intervals. Inside the Garbagriha was empty. The tower over the Garbagriha is a typical Dravidian Sikhara & by its small size looks elegant.

We all climbed the top (Sikhara) of the temple sort of escapade .Sitting atop of the temple & watching an amazing beauty of the valley, the scenic view of in front Big lake & Cave mountain was mesmerizing we almost traveled back in time to Chalukyan era .................