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 70

ELURA: INDRA SABHA JAIXA CAVE.
A screen wall, left in the rock, terminates the court on the south side, and is pierced by a doorway with a Dravidian roof. This court is about 56 feet inside from north to south and 48 feet across. In it stands an elephant on the right side, about 15 feet bigb, inclusive of the pedestal ; a fine monolithic column 27 feet 4 inches high, which fell over against the side rock about eight years ago; and a small mandapa analogous to the Nandi mandapas in front of Saiva temples. This is about 8 feet 5 inches square inside, raised by eight steps above the level of the court, with a door on each side, but only with ascents from the north and south sides; each door has two advanced pillars. The roof, as may be seen from the section and the plan of it (plate xl, fig. 1), is Dravidian in style. Inside this room is left a square block of rock, on each side of which is carved a figure of Mahavira, one of the Tìthankaras, with the wheel in front of the seat supported by lions.
The accompanying autotype plate vi is a view taken in 1874, before the monolithic column in the west side of the court fell over, and shows the gateway, the mandapa in the court and the pillar, with portions of the façade behind them.
Exclusive of the verandah, the lower hall must have been intended to be about 72 feet wide by 56 feet deep, beyond which are two free-standing pillars and two in antis in front of the vestibule to the shrine, 40 feet wide and 15 deep, inclusive of the pillars. The shrine alone has been completed, and is 17 feet wide by 13 feet deep, containing a Malavira seated cross-legged on a lion-throne, with the wheel or chakra in front, which is one of his emblems with the Digambara Jainas, to whom these cave temples have belonged.
The stair ascends in the verandah, and lands in the east end of the verandah of the great hall above. This upper hall, exclusive of the verandah, from which it is only separated by a low parapet wall, measures 55 feet deep by 78 feet wide. The verandah is about 54 feet long and 10 feet wide. In each end is a colossal image, the male (Cure Temples, plate xci, fig. 1) in the west, and the female in the east, usually known as Indra and Indrani, the former being seated on an elephant and the latter on a lion, with a tree bebind the lead of each, and small figures of attendants beside them. These figures are perhaps the Yaksha and Yakshiņi or Sasanadevi, the instructors of the Tirthaukara to whom the temple is dedicated. Each Jina or Tirthankara, like each Buddba, las his sacred tree; but he bas also his Sâsanadera and Devi, his principal male disciple or follower, and chief of his female followers. These are very shadowy creations, and it would be difficult to find anywhere among the numerous temples of the sect, with all their exuberance of images, representations of the forty-eight male and female Sâsanas or Yakshas that could be distinguished from one another. Neminátha, the 22d Jina in their books, has the Vetasa for his tree; but at Mount Girnår the mango (Ambi) takes its place; his instructor or Yaksha is Gomedha, and his Yakshini Ambikå ;* Parsvanátha, the 23d, has the Dhataki (Gristru tomentosa) for his tree, and Pârsvavaksha and Padmavati for his instructors; and Jahá vira, the 24th and last Jina, has the Sala (Shoreu robustu) as his consecration tree, and Matanga and Siddhayikâ as his attendant divinities. But that the figures at the enils of this verandah, and so frequent in the other caves here anl at Aukai, Patna, and elsewhere. represent a pair of these divinities is doubtful. They are always represented on the same
i For rewing, see Care Timples, pl. lxxx, fig...
. She is a form of Duryà, regarlel in Gujarat as a mother-goldess, and has a temple in the summit of Mount Girnir, which is sacred to Yeminátha.
3 This is also the Diksha tree of ljitanatha and Sumatinitha. the 21 and 5:. Tirthankaras.
IIfigures also as the Yaksha to Sufarsvanátha, theith Tirthaikara.