Jaina Rock Cut Caves In Western India Part 01

Author(s): Viraj Shah
Publisher: Agam Kala Prakashan

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Jaina Rock-cut Caves in Western India two kilometres. These caves belong to all the three sects of Buddhism, Brahmanism and Jainism. Caves I to XII at the southern end are Buddhist, XIII to XXIX are Brahmanical and XXX to XXXIV are Jaina. The Jaina caves occupy the northern end of the hill range and are about one kilometre away from the rest of the caves. Apart from these, there are six more Jaina caves in the same hill, but on the opposite face. While the former are almost at the base of the hill, the latter are at some height. There is another cave very close to Cave XXXII or Indra Sabha. These caves have been excavated at a much later date than the lower caves and are expressions of an independent artistic and religious activity at Ellora.
A number of works have been brought out on this site, though the focus has been on Buddhist and Brahmanical caves. However, the works dealing with Jaina caves in some details or exclusively with Jaina caves are of Fergusson and Burgess (1880), Burgess (1883), Gupte and Mahajan (1962), Pereira (1977), Pathy (1980), Soundara Rajan (1981, 1988), Dharurkar (1984) and Dhaky and Meister (1986). Of these, the first two publications provide basic description of the caves along with the ground plans of all the lower caves and the line drawings of almost all types of pillars as well as some of the sculptures. Gupte and Mahajan (1962) repeats the description of the caves in brief, while Soundara Rajan (1981, 1988) as well as Dhaky and Meister deal with the architectural features of these caves. Pathy has described the caves in brief, while attempting at the dating of the caves and placing the site in a historical context (1980). Pereira has given an excellent account of the iconography of these caves, along with exact placement of the icons, bringing into light a number of small figures of important yaksis and also identifying a few lesser-known gods of Jaina pantheon. He has also dealt with the problem of the date of these caves and tried to place them in a historical background. However, he has not recorded the details of iconographic features. Dharurkar has more or less repeated the description of the caves and tried to place the site in the context by reviewing other Jaina centres of Marathwada region. Since most aspects of these caves have been dealt with, here the neglected features of these caves such as the details of iconographic features, paintings and architectural peculiarities would be emphasised.
Though these caves are considered five excavations and numbered accordingly, each of the caves is actually a cluster of number of independent caves. Thus, for the sake of convenience, the numbering of each cave, as applied by Pereira is used here. Chhota Kailasa or Cave XXX of Burgess is Jl to J3. Cave XXXA of Burgess is J4. J5 is a cave of the later period, not numbered by Burgess. Cave XXXI is J6, Indra Sabha or Cave XXXII is J7 to J20, Jagganatha Sabha or Cave XXXIII is J21 to J25, while Cave XXXIV is J26.
Cave XXX or Chhota Kailasa, as popularly known, is about a few metres southeast of the rest of the caves and is isolated. It is so called because it is an attempt to imitate the great Kailasa or the Saivite Cave XVI, in smaller dimensions. Like Kailasa, it is also a monolithic shrine, excavated in a pit with a rough gopura and executed in Drāvida style, but is without nandimandapa, elephants or free-standing pillars. This cave is left unfinished from outside (Plate 18), while only the interior along with the icons is finished. The gopura is Jl and the main cave is J2. There is another smaller cave in the court of this cave, in the southern rock-face, numbered J3 here (Plate 19). About few metres away from this cave is another unfinished cave, numbered XXXA by Burgess and