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

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IRCHEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WESTERX INDIA.
The sculptures in Lakesvara have been executed with great care and minute detail, but most of them have been very much injured by Muhammadan iguorance. The figure of Siva dancing the Tamara in the end of the front aisle has often attracted attention, and is represented in plate xxix, fig. 2, where the elaborate headdress in which is fixell a skull and the crescent moon, the necklace, armlets, and jewelled belts may be studied. He is represented with six arms, of which the right front one, which was probably bent forwards, the back one bent downwards and forwards, and the front left one are all broken off, as is the whole of the left leg and the lower half of the right one, which appears to have been twisted quite round.
On the back wall is a series of the principal great gods of the pantheon in six sculptures, of which three are represented in plate xxx. Fig. 1 represents Sûrya or the sun-god at the east end of the wall with his two wives and two male attendants, his sons, the Aświns. He holds two lotuses growing out of his hands, wears a diadem, and necklace hanging down, with earrings and a girdle (viyanga), but it can hardly be said that in this case he is "clad in the dress of the Northerners, so as to be covered from the feet upwards to the bosom," as in Varaha Milira's directions for making his image.
Fig. 2 represents Umâ or Pârvati, the consort of Siva, four-armed, and performing tupas or ascetic penance between two fires, while holding up a linga--the symbol of Sivain oue right hand, and an image of Gaņešu, his reputed son and chief of his followers, in one of the left hands. There are traces uuder her feet of a crocodile, which being the emblem of Ganga, may also be used by Unå.
In the middle compartment on this wall (fig. 3) are the three Dii Majores of the Brahmans--Brahmâ, Siva, and Vishņu--each four-armed, but damaged in their hands, which probably held the usual symbols borne by each god. Brahmâ is represented with three faces—the fourth is supposed to be behind the central front one. His consort, Sarasvatî, the goddess of learning, is one of the figures beside him, and his ráhana or vehicle, the hansa-swan or goose, is on his left. The central figure is Siva holding up his trisulu, called Pinaka, and a snake, with Nandi by his side and an attendant. The third is Visliņu, with the discus and a great club, attended by a male and a female. An injured figure of Varâha-the Boar avatâra of Vishịu-on this same wall is represented on plate xxix, fig. 3, with his left foot on the heads of a pair of Nagas.
THE CHAPELS, SIKHARA, &c. It should be noted that while in Rârana-ka-khai, Râmêsvara, Dumâr Lena, and other cave temples, there is a clear passage for pradakshind or circumambulation of the shrine,
1 The figure of Siva from this panel was drawn ly Cunt. R. X. Grindlay for the Hon. Lady Hooil in 1813, and afterwards published in 1898 in the Trans. R. dsiat. Sor., vol. ii, p. 326, but like his other drawings made at Elura, he gives the figure quite an artistie finish of a high unler.
? A figure of Surya anl his two wives all ears in one of the tympana of the Ananta Cave on the Khandagiri hill in Orissa, not represented in the pilotograph from the casts in Cave Temples, pl. i and p. 72. It is over the left lour, and is specially interesting froin its close resemblance to the sculpture in the small very early Vihara at Bhaji (Cheer Towplex pl. xcviii and I'515, 52: Reports, vol. iv, r. 6 and pl. vi, fig. 1, and vol. ii, p. 215, anul pl. lxr; Im..Int., vol. ix. 116. When not in his chariut. Sürya is frequently attended by two arned males as well as by his wives.
3 Or ariyaviy, from the Daktrian ami Zend airpervikun , equivalent to the Parsi lusti.-- Haug's Essays, West's el., 286, 396.
Drihat Santhita, lviii, 16.