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 82

BADAMI AND AIHOLE CAVE TEMPLES.
51
the Tandava dance on a lotus, figured with the very unusual number of eighteen arms (plate xli, fig. 3), and attended by Nandi, Ganêśa, and Nârada.'
In the great Cave No. III. is a frieze very similar in subject to that in Cave II., only the band is 14 inches high, and being of much greater length, the twenty compartments of varying lengths, extending to over 120 feet in all. Of this, about half is represented on plate xlii. In the central portion of fig. 1 is Śri bathed by the heavenly elephants; to the right is Narasimha, the lion avatára, tearing up Hiranyakasipu, and on the left Vishnu on Garuda, engaged in combat with a déra in a chariot. In No. 2 Vishnu again appears in the centre on Garuda, and to the right again contending with Indra in fight. A battlescene occupies No. 3. In No. 4 Garuda appears carrying off the jar of Amrita, the water of life, from the Asuras, and to the left protecting it. In No. 5 it is perhaps Rahu who appears to the right of the jar; Śiva leans on Nandi, and Garuda is flying from the left. No. 6 represents the churning of the ocean, and Nos. 7 and 8 seem to be the scenes preparatory to that undertaking, the gods, mostly four-armed, figuring prominently as if in consultation. The other scenes closely resemble those in Cave II. In one of them is Krishna upholding the mountain Govardhana over the flocks of Vraj, a scene also represented in the Kailasa temple at Elurà and at Mahavallipuram.
The AIHOLE caves are only two-one Brahmanical and one Jaina, and have been described in the first of these Reports and in The Cave Temples. The Brahmanical shrine, though very small and much injured by Jogis living in it, is so rich in sculpture that a few specimens may be here added. Plate ix represents the roof of the small hall, and with the other examples from the neighbouring Jaina cave, figured on plate xlix of the Report on the Belgaum and Kalâdgi districts, and that of the Jaina cave at Ankai given in this volume (plate 1, fig. 1) are almost the only examples yet found of an attempt to reproduce by carving in relief the forms we have become so familiar with in painting at Ajanta and elsewhere. These too may have been originally enriched by the addition of colour, though it was hardly required-the relief of the carving being quite sufficient for ornamental effect, and its greater permanency had much to recommend it. Barring a curious irregularity in the setting out, and which is owing to the shape of the room, the selection of the ornaments in this ceiling is judicious and elegant, and their arrangement is sufficiently varied, without confusion, to render it one of the most pleasing specimens of a Hindu ceiling we are acquainted with. It is so at least till we come to the elaborately constructed coffers of the temples at Baroli and Mount Abu, which belong to a later age and different style of architecture. This ceiling, however, is interesting as a first attempt at a style. of decoration that afterwards gave rise to some of the most beautiful forms of Hindu architecture.
Plate xliii, fig. 2, represents Hara or Siva with only two arms, the parasu, marhu, or battle-axe by his left side, and the trisala at his right, holding a snake in his hand, while another twines round the parasu, and wearing the crescent moon on his mukuța.
1 For a sketch of the sculpture of Ardhanûrêsvara in this cave, see Ind. Ant., vol. vi, p. 359, and plate. See Iul. Ant., vol. vi, p. 365, and plates, where the figures should be arranged as follows: 2d plate, 4th. 5th, and 2d lines; 1st plate, 8th, 6th, 4th, and 2d lines.
3 Care Temples, pp. 149, 460.
4 Vol. 1, pp. 37-39, and plates xlviii to 1.
5 Pp. 404, and 491, 192.
Tod's Annals of Rajasthan, vol. ii, pp. 708, 733, &c.