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Beginning in the sixth century, the Eastern Chalukya dynasty, a vast and culturally diverse empire, turned its successive capitals in the now-sleepy villages of Aihole and Badami and the ceremonial center of Pattadakal into hubs for experimentation in religious architecture, assembling free-standing temples from elaborately carved stone that drew influence from both North and South India and excavating and erecting sites of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist devotion.

I met Bhushan, a feminist activist, four months later at Hotel Chalukya, whose restaurant is famous for its big, red triangular dosas.

In earlier times, however, we find this era well established, without any appellation, in Western India, in Gujarāt and the Ṭhāṇa district of Bombay, where it was used by kings and princes of the Chalukya, Gurjara, Sēndraka, Kaṭachchuri and Traikūṭaka families.

After that same time, it figures first in a record of the Chalukya king Kīrtivarman I., at Bādāmi in the Bijāpūr district, Bombay, which is dated on the full-moon day of the month Kārttika, falling in A.D.

According to the Basava-purana he early in life renounced his caste and went to reside at Kalyana, then the capital of the Chalukya kingdom, and later on at San�������t¶��vara near Ratnagiri, where he was initiated into the Vīra Śaiva faith which he subsequently made it his life’s work to propagate.