RECALLING OUR TRIP TO LAKUNDI,KARNATAKA IN 2011.
Siva and SuryaNarayal temples of Lakundi.They face each other.
I had an inner feeling that I have not uploaded enough photos of Lakundi temples. When my friend Devashish Nandy of CESC Ltd wanted to drop in to my place during his planning stage of a visit to north Karnataka & Goa, I opened my computer's HDD and went through the photos once again.I recall that was a day when my camera mal-functioned at least twice - once when I tried to capture the sculptures lying outside the local museum and next when I tried to click a photo of a drummer at Naneswara temple. Fortunately, Ruby and Canon s3is were there to my rescue !
Highlight of this this photo is are the two face-to-face 'makaras', with peacock-like tails,perched on two pillars.
Below - A pack of lion-like creatures are surging
like a pack of dogs pulling a snow-cart !
Heavily ornate black-stone Siva and Surya temples are little-known assets of Lakundi - and a delight for a 'student' of iconography like me. In this blog, I shall post photos of mythical and real-life animals sculpted here. I intend to publish a third blog on pillars, frames of wall-reliefs and doors of temples of Lakundi.
A Dancer - 'Gandharva' - among mythical animals, placed within a mythical 300 deg trunk !
His companion not adequately captured in this shot.
His companion not adequately captured in this shot.
All the animals of Lakundi temples are not mythical. There are horses and elephants aplenty. I found there is an emphasis on elephants from mythology. Kubalyapeerha, Airavata and Gajasura - after being slain - are here.There are vertical panels with hunting scenes , later adopted in several terra cotta temples .
Elephant carries Indra & Indrani (or royalty ?) amid celebration !
Erosion has eaten away into the finer aspects of the wall-relief.
A hunting scene from a vertical panel. Animals depicted very prominently.
We have seen in many 'Rekh-Deuls', the sides of the temples have king's insignia and alcoves meant for wall-reliefs framed such a way that it looks like a front- view of a 'deul'. Significant 'Parshwa_Devatas' are placed in these alcoves. I have captured a photo where Siva is on the top, a rather eroded image of a deity standing samapada is in the next tier with makaras, mythical composites and elephants all around. At the bottom, Garurha salutes Nandi - the implication is quite apparent.
A portion of the RH side of SuryaNarayan temple.Lots of animals
and motifs abound this portion!
A section of the animals on one of the side pillars. Lion,buffalo
and elephant jostle with each other !
The spouts of temples and -for that matter - historical monuments of Western hemisphere too have interesting gargoyles and grotesque figures. Many historians of architecture have prepared compilations of the same. I end here with one example from a temple of Lakundi .
A lone figure, holding a lotus in right-hand, cuddle up makara's neck . Here is a pattern of this type of co-existence!
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