Amazing Cave Temples of Badami

Badami Cave temples are man made rock cut temples built in North Indian Nagara Style and South Indian Dravidian style. Badami was the capital of early Chalukyas until eight century is in between mountains and lakes. The cave temples are cut out of the mountains.

You can see the town lake in this picture and also a temple near by. On the top of the picture you can see brown mountains. Cave temples are carved out of it.

All around the city you can see temples. There are small temples on the mountains and rocks that surround the town.

Even though there are many temples, Badami is known for its ancient cave temples carved out of the sandstone hills above. There are four temple caves. The temples look simple compared to any other Chalukya styled temples.

The first cave temple. You have to climb up to go to second, third and fourth temple

There are two Vishnu, one Shiva and one Jain temple. Each cave has a sanctorum, a mantapa, a verandah and pillars.

Second temple.

As you can see in the above photo complete temples are carved out of natural mountains. I can't imagine the effort and planning which has gone into this. Its truly amazing the see cavities created out of solid rock.

Steps to reach the upper cave temple.

It was pretty dark inside every cave and hence I could not take many pictures (I don't use flash). But the picture below shows inside view of Shiva temple.

Inside shiva temple. You can see Nandhi. Shiva linga is damaged.

Cave two and cave there are temples of Vishnu. There are many sculptures on vishnu on the inner walls.

The fourth and final temple is of that of Jain. You can see the 24th Tirthankara- Mahavira in this temple. This is the only Jain temple in Badami.

There are many Chalukya styled temples on the bank of the tank. Inside the village. One of such temple is below.

Another close look at Bhutanatha temple built in Chalukya style which is on the banks of town lake.

Badami is around 500kms from Bangalore and about 30kms from Bagalkot which is the nearest town. Its a must visit if you are a keen traveler.