Located between two rocky hills overlooking the green waters of a large lake Badami is famous for its four cave temples all hewn out of sand stone on the precipice of a hill.Today it is just a village but once it was the capital of the Chalukya empire.
The Station Road is the main road in Badami and the architectural cave complex lies to the east of it. There are four sets of caves. The oldest, Cave 1, has stunning carvings of Shiva in his Nataraja avatar, dancing the apocalyptic tandava. There are also carvings of the god in the Ardhanarishvara form where he is depicted as half man-half woman, the woman half representing his wife Parvati. Yet another carving is of Harihara, the right half of this figure depicts Shiva - the Destroyer and the left, Vishnu - the Preserver. Caves 2 and 3 are dedicated entirely to Vishnu, whereas Cave 4 is has an image of the Jain tirthankara, Adinath.The largest and most ornamental is the third cave temple dedicated to Vishnu.
Overlooking the cave temples is a reservoir dotted with temples dedicated to Vishnu and Shiva. Also a must are the Bhutanatha temples that lend their name to the lake beneath the cave temples. Other sites of note are the 5th century Agastyatirtha Tank, the fort and the local archaeological museum that has some fine specimens of carvings from the area including a collection of Lajja-Gauri Badami.
In the past Badami was the capital of the great Chalukyan Empire that controlled most of peninsular India between the 4th and 8th centuries AD. The Chalukyas are credited with some of the best traditions of Dravidian architecture including an experimental blend of older South Indian temple architecture and the Nagara style of north India, which passed into the Dravidian temple-building convention.