Sudha's Creative Journey

What inspired me

Lepakshi is situated in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, about 15 kms from Hindupur, ~120 kms from Bangalore. Built during the reign of Vijayanagara kings these temples were dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva

and Veerabhadra and are outstanding examples of the Vijayanagara architectural style. They are home to wonderful Mural paintings made with vegetable dyes.

The Veerabhadra temple has a rich collection of murals throughout painted onto the ceilings of caves and on wall panels. They are most delicate and elaborate in detail and of the highest quality. Many of them are already weathered and faded and soon might not be available. 

They are extremely valuable as representative of their period, in their content and style and need to be preserved with the utmost care.

This painting is from one of the cave ceilings of the Veerabhadra temple that had many parts of it not discernible to the eye and faded.  Several photographs had to be taken to reconstruct the whole. The style is completely uncorrupted and the Sepia colours are exactly as in the original.

The scene I believe, is from ‘Parvati Kalyana’ and the ladies are seen carrying perfumes, flowers and ornaments to bedeck the bride. Needless to say, the ladies themselves are beautifully dressed. And their abundant hair put together in buns are bejewelled and alluring!

It was a pleasure bringing them to life!