Report On Elura Cave Temples and Bramhanical and Jaina Caves in Western India

SR No.: 011091
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Trubner and Company London
Publication Year: 1883
Total Pages: 209
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 14 MB

Page 34

ELURA: THE DON THAL CAVE.
high headdresses and aureoles behind their heads, and opposite to them are three females or Devis-one bearing a flower-stalk. These are, doubtless, the Tàrâs or female counterparts (bodhisattvasamachcheryds) of the Bodhisattvas. Close to this, in the back of the verandah, is a door into a cell with a low broad bench or bed on the right side. Next to this is a shrine, with Buddha seated cross-legged on a throne, with four armed dwarfs at the corners, his hands in the hamisparsa mudrá,' that is, the left lying open in the lap and the right over the knee, with the back turned outwards. A small half figure of a female, in front of the throne and towards Buddha's right, holds up a jar. This is probably intended to represent Sujata, the daughter of Senani, who offered boiled milk to Gautama, just before he became a Buddha.
The chauri-bearers are, as usual here, the two Bodhisattvas, the vajra or bolt of the left one being supported on a flower by his side. On the same side are also three other standing figures, the first with a flower, the second with a large round bad, and the third with a pennon. Opposite these last are other three-the last with a long straight sword. A pair of gandharvas appear over each shoulder of the Buddha, and on the side walls over the Bodhisattvas are six Buddhas seated cross-legged on two shelves. To the north of the door into this shrine, a little figure kneels in an arched recess.
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The central door leads into a room about 30 feet wide by 20 feet deep, and 8 feet 9 inches high, with two square pillars in the middle, and partially lighted by an opening in the wall on each side of the door. In the shrine behind it, 13 feet wide and 8 feet 9 inches high, is an image of Buddha on a simhdeaner, in the bhamisparta modrá, with the usual Bodhisattvas as attendants-Vajrapani holding the thunderbolt in his uplifted right hand.
The shrine door to the left of this has mouldings round it, and lions carved at the foot of the jambs on the step. The sculpture inside is very similar to that on the other side of the principal shrine, but with the addition of a fat male figure on the front wall to the left of the entrance, and a female on the right.
On the verandah wall, between this and the door into an unfinished cell, is a figure of Dharma-that might be mistaken for Lakshmi-four-armed, with water-pot, lotus, and rosary, also two other female figures.
A stair in the rock leads up to the third storey, which has a hall 101 feet long, by 21 feet deep and 9 feet 7 inches high, but badly lighted on account of two large blocks left on each side the vestibule leading into it from the verandah. All the light admitted comes through this vestibule 30 feet wide and 15 feet deep, and through a narrow door and passage at each end. In the hall is one row of eight square pillars running from end to end. The pillars of the verandah have very thin plain brackets, and but little ornament on their square shafts (pl. xvi, fig. 5). Outside them is a low parapet wall. Inside, the pillars are perfectly plain. At the south end of the verandah is an empty cell, and in the inner walls are three slight cuttings, the beginnings of cells. In the middle of the back wall is an ante-chamber with two square pillars in front, and through it is the shrine containing a
1 Also called the Thurmusparsa mulra; the fingers of the right hand usually touch the seat.
Sujata Eugenia: for the story, see Bigandet's Legend of Gandama (3rd ed.), vol. i. p. 82: S. Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, p. 170; Beal's Fu-hiun, p. 121, and Romantic Legend, p. 194, where Sujata's father is called Nandika. In the Lalita Vistaru, as in some of the other versions, there are two sisters, Trapusha and Bhallika, who prepare the milk for him; in other accounts they are called Nanda and Nandabala, daughters of Sujata, the lord of the village. E. Arnold, in his Light of Axiu, quite alters the legend.