Overview
Badami, the Early Chalukya capital known in inscriptions as Vatapi, sits in a sandstone gorge in Bagalkot district, Karnataka. Four numbered caves open in the western cliff above the Bhutanatha tank (Agastya Lake): Cave 1 Shaiva, Caves 2 and 3 Vaishnava, Cave 4 Jain. Pillars, bracket figures, and ceiling reliefs of Vishnu, Shiva, and Jinas are cut from the living rock rather than assembled as structural temples.
Cave 3 is historically pinned: an inscription of Mangalesha, brother of Kirtivarman I, records a Vaishnava excavation in Shaka 500 (578 CE). James Burgess and later the ASI documented the caves; the Bhutanatha group on the opposite shore is structural, not cave-cut, and belongs in the same landscape file. The capital also yields the Kappe Arabhatta inscription in early Kannada.
"In the 500th year of the Saka kings, this Vaishnava cave was caused to be excavated by Mangalesha, beloved younger brother of Kirtivarman, in the rock of Vatapi."
— Mangalesha inscription, Badami Cave 3, Shaka 500 / 578 CE (Burgess/Fleet tradition)
Badami is not separately inscribed by UNESCO; it is grouped with Aihole and Pattadakal on India’s tentative “Evolution of Temple Architecture” list. Pair the gorge with Aihole for structural experiments and Pattadakal for the 8th-century coronation ensemble, and with Elephanta Caves for related Deccan Shaiva rock-cut sculpture.
The climb is a short stair from the tank. Cave 3’s dated inscription is the chronological anchor for the whole Early Chalukya cave series, not a caption for every relief in Caves 1–4.