Doddabasappa Temple, Dambal

No foundation inscription for the temple is cited in the sources consulted; Wikipedia and Karnataka Tourism date it to the 12th century on stylistic grounds, within the period when the Western Chalukyas ruled from Kalyana. The wider town has a long and varied religious history. Cousens records an inscription at Dambal from the reign of Vikramaditya VI, dated 1095 CE, recording grants to a Buddhist vihara and to a vihara of the goddess Arya-Tara, which shows that Buddhism was still active here at that time. Wikipedia's article on Dambal likewise notes the 1095 inscription and Buddhist relics found around the town.

By the time Cousens surveyed the temple in the early 20th century, the central figures over the shrine doorway had been knocked out, the east doorway was badly damaged and coated in old whitewash, and a roughly built extension had been added in front of the east door to shelter a large Nandi.

Architecture and sacred features

Cousens explains that the star outline is obtained by rotating a square about its centre, so that the corners fall at equal intervals. The shrine is planned on twenty-four points and the hall on thirty-two, with the pattern broken only where the shrine meets the hall and at the porches. Because the projections are carried right up the tower, the superstructure is broken into many small blocks of light and shade; Cousens found this less forceful than square-planned towers, and counted six storeys above the cornice, though the storeyed arrangement is hard to read. The building material is soapstone, according to Wikipedia.

Inside, the pillars repeat the angular theme and, in Cousens's view, are among the most intricately designed in Chalukyan work, resembling those of the Kasivisvesvara temple at Lakkundi though less graceful. Over the shrine entrance is an elaborately carved lintel with the guardians of the eight directions on their mounts; its central figures, which would have been Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu, are missing, and the doorway also has a finely carved moonstone step. Against the back wall of the hall stand loose images of a five-headed Brahma with his goose, and two of Surya. The temple has two entrances with porches, facing south and east, and a large Nandi faces the shrine from the eastern extension.