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CHAPTER 18)
- THE DECCAN achievements in built-up temples, made a very bold essay of this kind in the famous Kailäsa monolithic temple-complex at Ellora created by entrenching al round a central mass into the side of the rock and carving out of the central block a full temple with vimana, peripheral shrines, axial mandaras and gopura with prakara-flanks with an intervening sunk open courtyard. While this, attributed to Raştrakata Krsna III (757-83) and dedicated to Siva, is the largest available monolithic temple, the Jainas of the place created a lesser replica of the Kailasa, now called the Chotā-Kailasa, at the end of the ridge of Ellora. This and the Jaina cauumukha vimana in the Indrasabhā court mark the culmination of monolithic temples in south India.
The Choța-Kailāsa (Cave 30) is about a quarter the size of the great Kailăsa; in the process of reduction, its superstructure has assumed stunted proportions and is also unfinished. It is hewn out of the central mass of rock resulting by entrenching on its four sides, the extent of the pit being 40x25 m. The temple faces west. The main vidna has two superposed storeys as many Jaina structural temples, and it is perhaps owing to this factor that the storeys appear stunted. The lower storey has a large Mahavira attended by Yaksas and Yaksts, enshrined in the sanctum, and the upper has what would appear to be Sumatinātha with attendants. The upper storeys with sanctum is surmounted by an octagonal grivd and Sikhara, denoting it to be of the Dravida order of southern vimanas. On the side-walls flanking the entrance into the lower shrine are other images of Jinās and also an eight-armed goddess on the north wall. The door-jambs are of the Cāļukya-Rastrakūta overdoor-pattern with sakhas, a northern inheritance from Gupta times and the uttaranga above the architrave is a row of two kufas or miniature square vimana-reliefs, one at either end, and a fala or miniature oblong vimana-relief with wagon-top roof in the middle. The shrine is preceded by a small antardla, and a large maha
apa with sixteen pillars, of which some are of the kalasa-topped variety, while the others of the kumbha-valli type. The pillars are arranged in groups of four at the four corners of the hall which has three entrances on the west. north and south, with pillared porches fronting them as in the greater Kailasa. The porches have the characteristic kaksäsanas i.e., back bench like rests, on either side, as is characteristic of northern temples and those of Calukyan derivation in the south. The main entrance on the west is flanked by two dvarapalas, one on either side. Interestingly enough, on the wall-space on either side beyond the porch is carved a dancing Siva sculpture, and there is also a balf-finished relief of a goddess on the south wall. The sanctum of the upper tier is preceded by a Sukandsd, characteristic again of northern temples and those the Calukya Rastrakūta vintage, which comes over the antarala below
