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 86

LOXAD CAVE TEMPLE.
of this court, by the side of one of which is another small shrine. The left or west side of the hall is entered by a sloping passage, with a cistern by the side of it, which enters first into a sort of guard-room with unfinished rooms on each side, on the plan of the gateway at Elurâ, and with decayed remains of sculpture round the door. From the opposite or east side a more elaborate entrance is formed. First a stair descends or slopes down to a wide door that gives entrance to a large room over 30 feet deep, with a wide passage through it, separated from the side areas by a screen of four pillars on each side. This leads into an open! court nearly 60 feet wide by 40 deep, with two irregular upright blocks of rock, apparently intended to be hewn into dhvaja-stambhas or ensign pillars, similar to those on each side of the court of the Kailasa temple at Elura.
This court has three doors into another hall 59 feet wide by about 31 deep and 163 feet high, and which is divided into three areas by two rows of four pillars each-each division having its own entrance into the great hall of the cave. The central door has been carefully sculptured, and though now somewhat decayed, it is the best preserved piece of sculpture here, and is represented on plate xliv, fig. 2. Over the door, under a torana, Siva is seated-apparently receiving worship. Above the makaras on either side are female figures and cherubs. To the left is the marriage scene so often represented. On the right are Siva, Nandi, and Parvati, and attendants; and the tall dwärapålas and attendant dwarfs by the jambs are in keeping with those found in other Saiva caves. Over the outer door of the first hall on this side is also left a portion of the sculpture representing Rârana in the well-known scene under Kailasa. Ganeša figures to the left of Siva, and among the ganas below expressing their scorn of Råvana are some with animal heads. Over the makaras at the sides are figures on clouds, and above them again are clouds.
The shrine doors are also moulded, and the principal one, represented on the accompanying plate x, will fully illustrate their style, and presents a close analogy to those in the cave on the eastern hill of Elephanta called Sita's dévala, and which is apparently more modern than the great care there. The whole style is indicative of a later date for this hall than either the Elephanta one or the Dumar Lena; in fact, as stated in The Cave Temples, it may be regarded as one of the very latest of the larger cave temples iu ludia, and may be ascribed to the end of the eighth century A.D.
LoXÂD.
Lonâd is a small village about 3} miles N.N.E. from Kalyan, and about 30 miles from Bombay. In a hill which forms one side of a glen above this village Mr. W. F. Sinclair, of the Bombay Civil Service, discovered a rock temple in January 1875. It faces S. by W., and consists of a verandah 48 feet long by 10 feet wide, of a hall 15 feet long by 19 deep, entered by three doors, and of an unfinished shrine at the back (see plan on pl. xlvi, fig. 3). The verandah has four square pillars in front, with a carved frieze above about a foot deep; the left-end portion, or fully one-third of it, is represented on pl. xlv, fig. 1. It will be observed that there is nothing specially distinctive of any religious sect in these groups, but when compared with those in the Badâmi caves (plates viii aud xlii), they appear to belong to the same general class. In a recess at the left end of the front of the verandah is a larger group, represented in fig. 3. It is a good deal destroyed on the right or outer
1 See my Elephantu, 103, 104, and drawings x and xi. . See Indl. Ant., vol. iv, pp. 68, 165.