Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

Page 512

APPENDIX III
the temple, records a grant of oil to the priest of the temple by the Calukya king Vijayaditya, the builder of the Vijayeśvara temple.
The Calukyas were supplanted by the Raṣṭrakūtas about the middle of the eighth century A. D. The latter achieved little in the way of building structural temples, but they had their own works in hand in the north, notably the great excavations at Elura, which extended from the Dasa Avatara cave to the extensive group of Jaina caves around the Indra and Jagannath Sabhās.' These included the great monolithic temple of Kailasa, dedicated to Siva, which appears to have been excavated at Elūrā or Ellora, about fourteen miles northwest of Aurangabad, during the reign of Kṛṣṇa I who ruled between 756 and 775 A. D. He is described as having built many temples of Siva, resembling the Kailasa mountain; and, it was under the orders of this monarch that a most marvellous Siva temple, evidently the great Kailasa temple, is said to have been constructed on the hill at Elapura (Elūrā). The Kailasa resembles the temple of Virupaksa (Lokeśvara) at Paṭṭadakal in plan and details, although the former is hewn out of the solid rock, and the latter is built in the ordinary way on level ground. There is similarity even in the sculptures on the two temples, representing scenes from the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahabharata. •In Lokeśvara they occur upon the broad bands round the shafts of the great columns of the hall, while on Kailasa they are sculptured in narrow bands on the wall of the basement below the porch. Another unusual representation is that of the Siva-linga with Brahma and Visņu beside it, which is found, in both cases, on the front of the temple.' The Kailasa, in spite of its marvellous technique, and the more graceful treatment of its details, thus appears to be modelled on Virupakṣa; and it is probable that the Raṣṭrakūtas copied the Calukyan building art when they had overthrown the dynasty, just as the Calukyas themselves had copied the Dravidian architecture of the south when they had carried their victorious arms to Kāñcī or Conjeveram.* Unlike other cave-temples, the Kailasa, once gorgeously painted, stands, isolated from the surrounding rock, in a great court averaging 154 feet wide by 276 long at the level of the base, entirely cut out of the solid rock, and with a scarp 107 feet high at the back.' The bewildering amount of labour and technical skill expended on the celebrated temple bears eloquent testimony to the importance which the Saiva cult had attained in the Deccan in the Răşṭrakūta age.
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The Ellora group of cave temples includes, besides the Kailasa, other shrines dedicated to Siva such as the large cave north of Kailasa (XVII), and Caves XXII (Nilakantha), XXIII and XXVI. Far more important is Cave XXI, a lofty Saiva temple, locally known as Ramesvara. The hall is 15 feet high and measures 69 feet by 251 with a chapel at each end, cut off by two cushion-capital pillars.' Cave XXIX is known as Sita's
Bhandarkar: Early History of the Dekkan. Third edition, p. 109 ff.
For an elaborate comparison between the two temples see Cousens (op. cit.), p. 62. Burgess: A Guide to Elura cave temples, p. 31. (Reprinted by the Hyderabad Archaeological Department).