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CHAPTER 18]
THE DECCAN The Jaina temple locally called Megudi at Hallur which is 20 km. from Bhagalkot, is, both in its name and characteristics, analogous to the Meguti temple of Aihole. It is also most unlikely that this Hallur Megudi could have been very much separated in point of time from its Aihole counterpart. But for the tower-like superstructure on its first-storey shrine-chamber, it is certainly much better preserved. The use of the two torana-niches on either side of the ardha-mandapa-wall and the provision of a regular stone-cut monolithic stairway ladder to reach the roof are suggestive of earlier practices in vogue in the Calukyan region. This temple could be attributed to the second half of the seventh century.
Coming back to Aihole, its other Jaina temples are the Yeniyavärgudi, the Yogi-Nārāyana group and the Cärant Math.
Of the Yeniyavārgudi group of six shrines, the most interesting one, with a dhvaja-stambha in front, faces west, with its approach from the north through a pillared porch attached to its sabha-mand apa with its four pillars in the tenth century style. The lintels have Gaja-Lakşmi as the lalata-bimba. The adhisthana, which shows upâna, padma, kansha, tri-paffa-kumuda, another gala, and prati, is devoid of either the vedi or vyalavari on top. The walls are relieved and recessed alternately into karņa, central bhadra and the two intervening anuratha offset-bays which are adorned by vimăna-panjaras over close-set paired pilasters enclosing shallows and narrow blind niches. The prastara has a hamsa-valabhi over the uttira, slightly-projected kapota, with a vedi and vydlavari on top, carrying the elements of the håra. The vimana is two storeyed but the griva and sikhara with stapi on top are missing, But whatever remains strongly suggests the typical southern vimina-type as it had evolved in this region by the ninth-tenth centuries, which would ascribe an early or mid-tenth century date to this temple. The adjoining shrines, with sub-shrines, are of lesser interest, and all of them are empty and devoid of any characteristic sculpture.
The innermost temple of this group facing south has a mandapa-structure, aligned in its front, rectangular and closed, having four free-standing pillars inside, of ornate type, the other pilasters on the walls being plain of tetragonal section carrying a tenon-corbel. The free-standing columns are simplified degenerations of the early Calukyan forms with a square Sadur am over the basal pitha, short duted shaft, carrying circular sectioned segments above up to the kumbha, and are devoid of the pali or padma and phalaka (abacus). Their corbels or potikds have bevel arms with taranga-reliefs and plain median band. The ceiling, as in the Megudi, is a raised central transverse clerestory with flat
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