A UNIQUE SUN-FACING ROCK-CUT FEATURE AT BADAMI, KARNATAKA, INDIA

: Badami in the valley of the Malaprabha River in northern Karnataka state of India was one of the earliest nuclei of construction of temples in stone in southern India. Among the various stone monuments built at Badami and other centres in the Valley, are rock-cut as well as structural sanctuaries of the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist faiths. Though most of these monuments were executed during the rule of the Early Chalukyan Dynasty, during the sixth to the eighth centuries CE, there are later monuments too, erected even after Badami ceased to be a capital city at the end of Chalukyan rule. In this paper, we examine one of the smaller rock-cut ‘caves’ at Badami and argue that it was intentionally aligned to receive the Sun’s rays at sunrise on every day of the year. We examine the orientation of the excavation and verify the incidence of the rays of the rising Sun throughout the year. We examine the legend of a leper king (Koshtaraya) prevalent in the region and associated with an enigmatic image near the rock-cut cave, and we hypothesize on the creation of this unique Sun-facing rock-cut feature.