Page Text
________________
84
JAINA ANTIQUARY
[Vol. I
brought the Dravidian style with them into the Deccan. He says, the Ellora group (i.e. the Deccan) exhibits an extraordinary affinity with the southern style. They must have all been excavated by the Chālukyas and the Rāshtrakutas (7th to the 8th cent. A. D.) whose kingdoms extended from the Tungabhadra and Krishna in the South to Ellora and Mālkhed in the North?. The Bādāmi oave contains names of Digambará Sadhus, and the figures are marked by the sacred thread seen also in the statue of Indra at Ellora ; on either side of the statue of Malāvira are chauri. bearers, sarduias, makaras etc.2. The caves of Nasik have cells and halls for the monks, and those at Yeola in the same district have small but richly-carved door-ways. Among the smaller caves of interest might be mentioned those of Ankai, in the Khandesh district. They are seven in all, and belong to about the 1lth or 12th cent. A. D. They are rich in sculpture; a notable sample of wbich are the female dancing figures on petals bearing musical instruments. That of Kalugumalai, in the Tinnevelly district, is a rock-cut temple which deserves mention also not for its size but for its elegance of details. The temple now used by the Saivas is described as “a gem of its class.". It too belongs to about the same period as the caves of Ankais. These excavations are not copies of structural buildings, but are "rock-cut examples, which had grown up into a style of their own distinct from that of structural edifices "8.
Jaina art is to an overwhelming degree religious, and hence we find in it a certain lack of the purely aesthetic element conducive to its own growth. Even religion is emotional, and in the conventional Jaina art the ethical object predominates. The dominance of this ideal is indicated by sculptures representing scenes from the lives of their saints, rather than heroes in any
1. Burgess, pp. 20-22. 2. Ibid., A. S. of W. I., Belgaum and Kaladgi Dists. 1874,
pp. 25-26 ; Cave Temples, p. 491. Burgess and Cousens, Revised Lists of Antiquarian Remains in
the Bombay Presidency, VIII, pp. 46-49, 52. Fergusson, op. cit., pp. 18-19; Burgess, Cave Temples, pp. 505-37.
22 ; Burgess, op. cit., p. 159.
ci
inco
90
| SR No. | 529551 |
| Book Title | Jain Siddhant Bhaskar |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Jain Siddhant Bhavan |
| Publisher | Jain Siddhant Bhavan |
| Publication Year | |
| Total Pages | 417 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Jain Siddhant Bhaskar, & India |
| File Size | 10 MB |