Chalukyan Language
Sanskrit was the recognized medium in these mathas and was also the official language at the court. Two outstanding Sanskirt works of this age are Bharavi’s Kiratarjunia and Dandin’s Dashakumarcharita.Apart from the university at Kanchi which acquired fame equal to that of Nalanda there were a number of other Sanskrit colleges. Apart from Sanskrit various regional languages also prospered –Tamil in the far south and Kannada in the Deccan.References are made to the existence of considerable literature in Kannada at this time but little has survived.
A 7th century inscriptions of a Chalukyan king at Badami mentions Kannada as the local Prakrit or natural language and Sanskrit as the language of culture which summarizes
Art and Architecture
Art made great progress under the patronage of Chalukya kings. A new style of architecture known as the Chalukya style which was different from the Gupta style was developed during this period. Aihole represents the best of Chalukyan architecture and thus has rightly called the cradle of Indian temple architecture. The three famous temples at Aihole are Ladh Khan Temple, Durga temple and Hucchimalligudi temple. The Ladh temple is a flat roofed structure. The Durga temple was an experiment seeking to adopt the Buddhist chaitya to a Brahmanical temple. The Hucchimalligudi temple is very much similar to the Durga temple but smaller than it. The movement of rock-cut halls was initiated during the 7th century AD. There are as many as 10 temples at Pattadakal belonging to this period.
There are four temples in the northern style and six of them follow the Dravidian style. Among them the temple of Virupaksha is the most important one. It is a direct initiation of the Kailashnatha temple of Kanchi and was built by one of the queens of Vikramaditya II. Another important achievement of the Chalukyan art was the building of excavated cave temples of Hindu gods. The Melagiti Sivalaya at Badami is a small but finely proportioned and magnificently located temple.
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