Badami sits in a sandstone gorge in northern Karnataka where the rock is the colour of dried turmeric and the cliff face holds four temples carved directly into it, not built against it. The caves were cut by the early Chalukya kings between roughly the sixth and seventh centuries, and they climb a single escarpment above Agastya Lake in a sequence that rewards walking in order. The path is one continuous staircase, and each cave is a chapter in the same sentence.
