Great Living Chola Temples - Part Three
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| The musical steps |
Great Living Chola Temples - Part One
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| Raja Raja Cholan and his Guru |
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| Thiripuranthaka |
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| Nandi Mandapa |
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| An ordinary couple's sculpture on the left pillar of main entrance to welcome the poor people inside the temple |
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| A rich couple's sculpture on the right side pillar of the main entrance to welcome the rich people inside the temple |
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| Padma nidhi - One of the gatekeeper of Kubera, the god of wealth |
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| Sanga nidhi - another gate keeper of Kubera, the god of wealth |
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| The sun god on the roof - On his both sides, his two wives who represent sun rise and sun set are pushing away day and night with bows - beneath them is the sun god's chariot with seven horses representing seven days of the week |
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| Lord Shiva, Parvati and Ganesha in Kailash |
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| The Pancha Pandavas - from left: Bhima (has mace in hands), Yudhistra (sits on an unique throne), Nakula Sakadeva (identical thrones for both) and Arjuna (has bow and sits on radha) |
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| One of the Mahabarata pillars - Middle: Bhishmar on arrow bed - Lower: Bhima and Duriyodhana's mace fight and Duriyodhana hiding in a pond after defeat |
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| Back view Ravana lifting Kailasa and shaking the hill - Since he has 10 heads it looks like a front view |
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| Another side view |
Since this place is used for the coronation ceremonies of Chalukyas, it got the name 'Pattadakal'. Totally 94 kings and governors had been coronated here.
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| From left side, you can see temples in North Indian style (Nagara), South Indian style (Dravidian) and the hybrid of both styles |
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| Nagara style temple |
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| Dravidian style - Sangameshwara Temple |
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| The Virupaksha Temple - Built by Vikaramaditya II 's chief queen Lokamahadevi in order to celebrate her husband's victory against Pallavas thrice - This temple is considered as the perfect example of how a dravidian style temple should be (Inside pics in next blog post) |
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| Virupaksha Temple - Side view: Peacock style windows |
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| Virupaksha Temple |
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| Mallikarjuna Temple: Inner view - Built by Vikramaditya II's second queen Trilokamahadevi |
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| Mallikarjuna Temple - People with different hairstyles |
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| Mallikarjuna Temple - People with different hairstyles |
