The Durga temple is an early 8th-century Hindu temple located in Aihole, Karnataka, India.
Originally dedicated to Surya, it has the most embellished and largest relief panels in Aihole depicting artwork of Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Vedic deities. Apart from its fine carvings, it is notable for its apsidal plan – a rare example among early Chalukyan Hindu temple architecture.
Though dedicated to Surya, the temple is now named Durga because a durg or fortified lookout was constructed on top of it after the 13th-century during the wars between Hindu kingdoms and Islamic Sultanates. This rubble lookout survived through the 19th-century when this site was rediscovered (it is now gone, temple has been restored). The Durga temple is the most prominent attraction in Aihole for tourist and scholars. It is a part of a pending UNESCO World Heritage Site application.
The temple has been dated between the late 7th century and early 8th-century of the early Chalukya dynasty. According to Dhaky and Meister – scholars of Indian temple architecture, an inscription discovered in the 1970s confirms that this temple was originally dedicated to Surya, built by someone named Kumara, but does not include a date. On paleographic grounds, the inscription cannot be later than c. 700 CE.
The Durga temple has an apsidal plan for its sanctum, one that fuses with a square plan for the mandapa. It is the largest of a group of over 120 temples at Aihole and illustrates a mature example of the Badami Chalukya architecture. The architecture of the temple is sophisticated as it combines an apsidal plan for the sanctum (garbhagriya) with a non-apsidal Nagara-latina shikhara with roots in North Indian architecture. In other parts such as the mandapa, it uses a mix of rectangular and square plans, all fronted by a mukhacatuski-style entrance. It integrates an ambulatory passage within. This fusion of north and south Indian ideas on architecture is not disjointed, but one well integrated. For example, the adhisthana is formulated by a Nagara khura-kumbha, and the decoration with it is Dravida.
The most original feature of the temple is a peristyle delimiting an ambulatory around the temple itself and whose walls are covered with sculptures of different gods or goddesses. The rounded ends at the rear or sanctuary end include a total of three layers: the wall of the sanctuary itself, the main temple wall beyond a passageway running behind this, and a pteroma or ambulatory as an open loggia with pillars, running all round the building. Stone grilles with various geometrical openwork patterns ventilate the interior from the ambulatory. The heart of the shrine (garba griha) is surmounted by a tower which announces the future higher towers shikharas and vimanas. The amalaka that once crowned the shikara is on the ground nearby.
From the front the temple appears much more conventional; two staircases provide access to the porch, with many richly carved relief panels, including roundels with groups of lovers. The sober and square pillars are decorated with characters around the porch and the entrance to the peristyle. The parapet is carved with niches and small animals. The porch gives access to rooms with pillars (‘mukhamantapa’ and “sabhamantapa”) to get into the sanctuary, the heart of the shrine (garba griha). The sanctum is empty.
Parts of the Durga temple have been damaged, including the artwork it had originally. Some panels are missing, for others the iconography helps identify the identity of the deity or depicted theme. The major artworks are found on the entrance pillars, mukhamandapa pillars, first two bays of the ambulatory and some of the panels around the apsidal ambulatory. The outermost pillars towards the apsidal section are plain.
As the devotee enters the temple, she or he witnesses dvarapalas, along with scenes of artha and kama (mithuna, erotic happy couples) from the everyday life on pillars and pilaster through the mukhamandapa. Below, near the base of the porch and mandapas are smaller panels that contain scenes from the Hindu epic Ramayana.
The gudha-mandapa’s doorframe has six shakhas – concentric bands of artwork. These are Naga, Valli, Stambha, Mithuna, Valli and Bahya-style decoration bands. At the base of this doorframe are goddess Ganga and Yamuna, with their traditional attendants. As one gets closer to the sanctum, the artwork shows deities, and legends associated with dharma themes and scenes. The major dharma panels are in the ambulatory passage. These includes (along the traditional Hindu-style clockwise circumambulation):
-missing panel
-Vrishavahana (Shiva with vahana Nandi)
-Narasimha (Man-lion avatar of Vishnu)
-Vishnu with vahana Garuda
-missing panel
-Varaha (boar avatar of Vishnu, the rescued earth is shown as a tiny Bhudevi nuzzling at his tusk)
-missing panel
-Durga as Mahisasuramardini
Harihara (half-Shiva, half-Vishnu)
According to Dhaky and Meister, some of the “niche figures are of very superior quality”.
The ceiling of the Durga temple had carved panels. These were removed and are now a feature item in the National Museum, New Delhi.