Madhava Temple
ಮಾಧವ ದೇವಾಲಯ
Hanuman
the famous statue in this temple, he is 3 meters high
I took a million pictures here. It was my first encounter with something dance specific. According to the sign at the site:
Popularly known as Ranga temple, dedicated to Madhava as per the inscription is built along with its Devi shrine in east west orientation. The Madhava temple has a Garbhagriha, a vestibule and a large 18 pillared Mukhamantapa. The temple s known for its colossal sculpture of Hanuman, three meters high, placed in the Mukhamantapa. The Devi shrine is built on a raised Adhisthana of 2.5 meters high.
An inscription at the time of Sadashivaraya at the temple dated to 1545 AD records the construction of a Rangamantapa for the god Madhava by Timmaraju son of Vallabharaju, exclusively for holding dance, vocal and instrumental music concerts in the temple. The pillars of this Rangamantapa have sculptural depictions of Garuda, Vitthala, Surya, Balakrishna, Hanuman and Alwar. The sculptures of Krishna Leela, Vitthala, Srinivasa and episodes of Prahlada, Matsya, Varaha and Narasimha incarnations of Vishnu on the architrave are of interest.
Wow! Here I am looking at a real live dance hall!!!!
There are three buildings. The main building is Mukhamantapa that holds the huge Hanuman. Second is the Devi Shrine, and third is the Rangamantapa.
Mukhamantapa
This was an interesting enough building. Of particular interest was the rear panel with Kannada writing. I suspect that the writing is not interesing, but I have a hope of translating it. It totally makes me feel like Indiana Jones to think I could potentially read something written so far away in a language so different from my own.
Devi Shrine
Then there was an enclosed structure, which I presume was the Devi shrine. There was not much to see here, the shrine is empty and fairly simple.
Rangamantapa
But the best of all was the Rangamantapa. It has 12 columns and a flat ceiling decorated with murals around the edge. It's not a huge space, but Indian dance does not presume a vast amount of space, it can can be done intimately and compactly. Sadly the floor of the space is broken, so it was hard to get a feeling for what it would have been like.
In the 10 years since, this little bit of architecture has been extremely frustrating to me. Having now seen several previous eras of dance spaces, this space is harder to believe as a dance hall. First, it's very small. And all the columns make it impractical for dancing. Lastly, unless there was a wood (or other type of decaying material) structure around it, it would be extremely un-fun for the audience to sit and watch. All other performance spaces in Indian history that I've seen (mostly, if not all, at temples), have better ventalation/shade for the audience, a bigger, less fraught-with-columns space for dance, and are generally bigger. At temples, they are usually situated by the god, and it's hard to believe that they would be without at least some sacred element. But my biggest objection is practicality.
Also - in trying to corroborate with other sources that this is a dance space, the leads are extremely sketchy and it feels as if the academic jury is at best undecided on the topic. There are, however, some great detailed pictures in here that give some interesting insights on people and dance, regardless of the purpose of the building itself.
Rangamantapa Details
The part that intrigued me most was the ceiling. Around the "baseboard" is a set of carvings that are protected from the weather. They are still very worn down, but there were some interesting details.
Three standing figures in between large beasts. The center figure seems to have long sleeves, which is unusual.
4 male figures and 2 enormous beasts. The figures are largely worn down but the two on the corners show interesting sashes or hip belts.
A group of 6 people in between two large beasts. On the far right is a figure dancing. I'm not sure quite what the figures are doing. Could be dancing... could be thinking. I'm reasonably sure that the right side figure to the left of the beast is probably a woman.
There are three central figures, positioned like a god and two wives. Then two beasts, followed by a man on each side. The two men on the outsides are dancing.
I believe all these people are dancing. I think they are all men. The thing most interesting to me is how unconstrained they look.
The central figure is a man dancing and playing the flute.
Admittedly, these figures are not high in detail - they are far away, and fairly small - around 6"-8". However, they are somewhat unique. There will be many pictures of female dancers, but not many that seem to be male, and none that have this mix of groups, beasts and male dancers.
A few of the columns also caught my eye:
The left is a dancing man. Noticing his big head and small body, I wonder if he is dwarf. There are stories of gods incarnated as dwarves, so this is not beyond the realm of reason. The other figure is most likely a yakshi - a supernatural woman affiliated with trees. They are often shown in this pose, with one foot against the tree. I did not see so many yakshi images in Vijayanagara, and I particularly liked the shape of the tree and the details in her jewelry. I have no idea if she is wearing any clothes.
See all pictures of the Rangamantapa here.
