that mixed some features of the nagara and the dravida styles, for example using both the northern shikhara and southern vimana type of superstructure over the sanctum in different temples of similar date, as at Pattadakal. This style was further refined by the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta (750-983AD) in sites such as Ellora. Though there is clearly a good deal of continuity with the Badami or Early Chalukya style, other writers only date the start of Vesara to the later Western Chalukyas of Kalyani (983-1195 AD), in sites such as Lakkundi, Dambal, Itagi, and Gadag, and continued by the Hoysala empire (1000-1330 AD). Other art historians such as Sinha state that experimentation and innovations in Hindu temple architecture began quite early in Karnataka at sites such as Aihole, Pattadakal, Badami and Mahakuta where both Nagara and Dravida temples were built close to each other. However, these more or less retained their historic identity. Vesara, states Sinha, should not be considered as a simple mixture of nagara or dravida, but as an architectural invention that was difficult and a deliberate creative synthesis given the materials and construction methods available in India over the 7th to 12th-centuries. This view is supported by inscriptions discovered in the north Karnataka region. For example, at the mid-11th-century Joda-kalasha Hindu temple in Sudi – an early vesara example – is an inscription in a mix of Sanskrit and Kannada below Shaiva iconography, that mentions Somesvara I and saka 981 (c. 1060 CE). After mentioning Hindu dynasties all over the Indian subcontinent, successful public works, ascetics and the schools of the silpins, it states in verses 16–17: The Joda-kalasha temple thus was a challenging innovation over a trend whose earliest surviving sample is in what is now the Kukkanur village of Karnataka, the Kallesvara (Shiva) temple (1000–1025 CE). The Kukkanur temple shows most of the Dravidian features, particularly in the superstructure. The sanctum and mandapa, however, introduces a projecting bhadra with rhythmically placed thin pilasters. This thereby introduces Nagara style and takes the first step to harmonizing the relationship between how the viewer aesthetically experiences the temple from the outside and inside of the temple. This bhadra innovation required changes in how the temple was assembled and the layout of the superstructure. These changes were further perfected as the decades of the 11th-century unfolded in Karnataka. The Sudi temple was a significant step forward. The Kasivisvesvara temple in