Paintings at Badami

Badami or Vatapi as it was earlier known as , is one of the most treasured monuments of ancient India. The paintings which are housed in rock-cut cave temples mostly belong to 6^th and 8^th centuries. The Badami caves were a major source of inspiration to the monuments at Mahabalipuram. The Pallava king was mesmerized by the art and architecture of the Chalukya caves at Badami and took with him the idea of emulating the same concepts back in his kingdom. The remnants of Mahabalipuram are a clear signage to the above fact. Later history also gives clues to Chalukyas taking architectural cues from Pallava temples.

Badami mural paintings are the earliest survivors of the Hindu paintings. Many of them could not stand the effects of time yet some have reasonably survived. The paintings were completed during the period of King Mangalishwara, son of Puleksin I. The caves at Vatapi were fully decorated with murals; many of them were inspired from Puranas. The most surviving murals include the paintings of Shiva and Parvathi as well as some other characters.

The paintings were highly decorated as the remains clearly suggest the grandeur and splendour of the ancient ages of India. The paintings have blurred the religious lines as the art belongs to Hindu, Jain and Buddhist inclinations which shows the prevalent secularist thought and tolerance in those times. They also bear a close proximity to the Ajanta art which was a product of the Chitrasutra technique. The Cave number 4 has a mural painting of Adinatha, the Jain tirthankara.

There are 4 caves of which

• Cave 1 is oldest among the four caves. Paintings on the ceiling of the cave are of Lord Shiva as Nataraja, and Shiva and Parvati with a coiled serpent which has high aesthetic value. This is thus dedicated to Nataraja.
• Cave 2 is dedicated to Lord Vishnu and his many incarnations.
• Cave 3 is also inspired by Brahmanical forms and thus has giant figures of many avatars of Vishnu like Paravasudeva, Bhuvaraha, Harihara and Narasimha.
• Cave 4 is based on Jain ideology and it has a huge image of Lord Mahavira. It is said to be built at last at least a 100 years away from the first cave.

Summary

There are very little survives of the mural paintings in the caves of Badami in Karnataka. The paintings of Badami are among the earliest surviving in Hindu temples, just as the paintings at Ajanta and Sittannavasal are the earliest Buddhist and Jain murals. The caves at Vatapi were fully decorated with murals; many of them were inspired from Puranas. The most surviving murals include the paintings of Shiva and Parvathi as well as some other characters. The painting style is close with that in Ajanta. The Cave number 4 has a mural painting of Adinatha, the Jain tirthankara.