Two Temples of the Ikkeri Nayakas.

This paper is a study and documentation of two temples of the Ikkeri Nayaka period in southwest India, the Rameshvara of Keladi and the Aghoreshvara of Ikkeri. The rise of the Ikkeri Nayakas, first as viceroys of the Vijayanagara Empire, then as one of its successor regimes, saw a new concentration of power in the western part of today's Karnataka state, as well as a new beginning for architectural patronage, the results of which have hardly been studied or documented so far. These two temples were very possibly the earliest and largest of the regime, founded in the first two capitals by the Nayakas themselves, and have been described by previous scholars as the most stylistically heterogeneous in the whole of south India. This paper contains the first ever architectural documentation of the two complexes, a study of their form, composition and stylistic emulation, and an attempt to find the meaning and pattern in their designs, including the architectural and other processes that led to the heterogeneity. The central idea discussed in the conclusion is that of the politics of architectural revivalism, seen in the designs, design sources, and varying heterogeneity of both the temples, which appears to have been related to the political and economic developments of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]