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Vol. II–1996
Style and Composition in the....
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which show the unfnished base of a façade pillar in the lower cave on the western side of the Thara Sabhā (J-10 in Pereira), demonstrate such a case. They also serve to illustrate the method of carving the crisp, sharp decorative elements, from simple, geometrical layout to complex surface patterns. As we scan the variety of compositions and of patterns employed in the Indra Sabha and Jagannātha Sabhā cave-complexes, we begin to get some sense of the fascination which the carvers must have felt with the possibilities of their task. They were working close by the source of theis formal inspiration, the Lankeśvara cave-temple, which is a part of the Cave 16 komplex that includes the monolithic Kailāsa temple of siva; but the spirit that it formed them arose from a different society. The rapid and experimental development of style at Cave 16 now settled into a period of refinement and elaboration of established models. The pillars of the Kailāsa temple (Plate 5) have architectural prototypes that differ from those of the Lånkeśvara cave (Plate 6), whose carvers, working at a time when the carvers of the monolith were finished with the mandapa", seem to have closer ties to the local cave tradition. The amalaka-shaped cushion-capital (ghata), not used at the Kailāsa, is used here in two of the three major pillar types, and it is these three types which form the basis for variation in the pillars of the Jaina caves (cf. Plates 6 and 7). The style of the Lankeśvara temple, of both its figural sculpture and its architectural detail, may be described as “mature.” The sculptural figures, with their bold, flowing curves and freedom of movement, have a sensuous ripeness, different, expressively, from the youthful vitality and exuberance of their neighbours on the Kailāsa temple. The massive well-shaped pillars are in fine harmony with that change in tone.
In Fergusson and Burgess, Cave Temples of India, p. 458, it is remarked that the proportions of the pillars in the Lankeśvara cave ("hardly more than three diameters in height") "are more appropriate for rock-cut architecture than almost any other in India, and in strange contrast with quasi-wooden posts that deformed the architecture of Mahavallipur about a century earlier." I shall return to this remark later on, but for the moment, it may be assumed that the attitude expressed in it is one that the Lankeśvara designers must have shared. Weight, a quality of stone, is emphasized in every part of this majestic excavation. And, although the richness of decorative detail could be no greater than that of the Kailāsa pillars, it is far less restrained in its application, for the pillars vary more in form, and a composite type, combining a plain, square base with a fluted, cylindrical upper part, resting on an elaborate, deeply cut pūrnaghata, is favoured. The proportional relation of upper, decorated parts to lower, plain parts is roughly 1.75 / 1.25, about half of the square, lower section being composed of the base mouldings. One of the other two types has 16-sided upper section and square base, proportioned
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