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 38

ELURI: THE TIX THIL CIVE.
before her; the other had a flower-stalk by her side. On the pilaster to the left are a squatting figure of Buddha, two male figures, and four females, with different flowers. On that to the right is a dagaba and flay, a squatting Buddha, and a Bodhisattva with a flower. Behind this is a repetition of the sculpture with the nine figures, only hier Buddba is in the centre of the upper row. On the south end is a repetition of the sculpture on a smaller scale, but with two Dêris on each side.
On the north pilaster of the antechamber to the shrine is carved a dayaba, with a Buddha on the front of it; below it a squatting Buddha, and still lower a Déri with a flower branch. The shrine door is plain, but has large figures of Padmapáni with his lutus and rosary, and Vajrapâņi with his fulmen, as guardians.
The shrine itself is about 22 feet wide, 19 feet deep, and 13 feet 8 inches high. It contains an enormous image of Buddha seated cross-legged in the thâmisparsa múlró, with the left hand in the lap and the right lying over the knee. In front of the low pulmise or Bodhimanda, on which he is seated, is a female (Sujata ?) holding up a jar, and to the left is another standing over a prostrate human figure. Against each side wall stand five tall Bodhisattvas. On the right side are (1.) Avalokitesvara or Padmapàņi as chuuri-bearer (chámarika); (2.) a figure with a bud in his right hand; (3.) another with a sword; (1.) a fourth with his hand raised; and (5.) one with a lotus Huwer; and on the front wall on a high seat squats a female holding a flower-stalk. On the left side, as in the upper shrine represented in plate xx, fig. 1, are (1.) Vajrapàņi, with the cure on the top of the flower-stalk; (2) the second with an opening Hower, and holding some small object in his right hand; (3.) with a full-blown flower and a small object; (4.) with a flag and small object; and (5.) with only a bud in the right hand. On the front wall is a stout mal, with a round object in the right and a long curling one in the left hand. This is probably the excavator of the cave. On shelves above are seven Buddhas on each side seated cross-leggel.
On the jamb of a window that lights the stair ascending to the upper storey is a small figure on horseback with two attendants, and above is a female with a flower.
The upper floor of the Tin Thâl is by far the most splendid ball among the Baud Via Caves of India. It measures 115 feet in length by 64 deep from the inside of the first row of pillars, and 12 feet 2! inches light, the roof being supported by forty square pillars in five rows, inclusive of the frout one. At the back also it has an open autechamber 37! feel wide, the front divided by two pillars, and 16 foet deep. Unlike the monastic balls the Ajanta vihůras, this has no cells for residents. Five recesses in the south and four in the north end wall coutain nine colossal images of Buddhas' with their attendants, but unfortunately all the sculptures have been more or less broken, scarcely a figure being left entire in this splendid cave.
Along the back wall of the hall are fourteen large cross-leggel figures of Budihas. seven on the north, and as many to the south of entrance of the antechamber to the shrnc. Those on the north side hare each his hands in his lap-in the Jirinde mudri, aureoles behind their heads, and trees rising from behind them, with foliage carefully varied in each case. These must represent the supposed seven last Bulbas, viz. (1.) Tipsvi; (e.) Sikhi; (3.) Visvabhủ; (4.) Krakuclichhanda ; (5.) Kanaka Muni; (6.) Kasvaja; and (7.) Sakya Simha, whose Bodhirrikslus or sacreil trees, accorsling to Mahanamo in lii
1 Possibly Liparikara, Ratuagalli, Vivaxi, Sikhi, Visviel hù, Krakudhulunkt. Kancka Muni, Kass Saksa Sinha.
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