Panchakuta Basadi, Kambadahalli

A group of five shrines from the Western Ganga period, one of Karnataka’s oldest surviving basadi complexes, with a free-standing pillar before it.

Kambadahalli sits eighteen kilometres from Shravanabelagola, and its five shrines — a mix of trikuta (three-shrine) and dwikuta (two-shrine) groupings — are commonly dated to the Western Ganga dynasty’s patronage, though historians differ on exactly when: one influential dating puts the complex around 900–1000 CE, another, reading Pallava and Chalukya influences in the earlier carving, argues for as early as the eighth century.

The village’s own name comes from what stands before the basadi: a sixteen-metre manastambha — literally, the "pillar" the name Kambadahalli means in Kannada — square at its base, rising through an octagonal section to a sixteen-sided fluted shaft. Manastambhas of this kind stand before Digambara shrines generally, but Kambadahalli’s is old and tall enough that the place took its name from the pillar rather than the temple behind it.

Written for Jain Times. Corrections are welcome — see sources and licences.