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Vol. II-1996
Style and Composition in the....
in relation to his material. The slender, elegantly proportioned pillars of Mamallapuram ("quasi wooden posts") deny the heaviness of the stone roof they appear to support. It happens, then, that the development of rock-cut architecture away from its wooden prototypes first produces a gain in authority, as the massive stone asserts its own character. In cave excavation, however, the gain has a precarious hold. No new structural demands impose their own discipline, and the temptation toward capricious experimentation becomes irresistible once all of the technical challenges have been met. Returning, then, to the pillars of the Jaina caves at Ellora, we may note that the carvers have exercised their freedom as sculptors, rather than builders, to create a fantasy of quasi-architectural forms. They have outdone each other in invention and variety, and they have even produced extremely delicate post-like pillarettes to flank the shrine doorways. While they play with form and decorative detail, they are not as restrained as the figure-sculptors are by the iconographic canons relating to sacred symbolism. When the pürnaghata theme of their major pillartype is transformed into a flaring collar that oversteps the width established by the capital and seems to cling to its place on the shaft only by virtue of the taper which supports it, we see it as an obtrusive weight with which the pillar has been burdened. There is an abstract unity of design in the clever opposition of upward and downward tapers, but it is contrived, and we are inclined to reflect such unity as inorganic. As so often happens in the evolution of creative activity, fascination with novelty and inventiveness, although not detrimental to technical excellence, has trivialized the formal tradition upon which it is based. On the other hand, the fine detail and the sharp, precise carving technique in the slender, fluted pillars flanking the shrine entrances and in the foliage motif, kalasa and figural adornments of the large pillars, as well as in the settings and attendent figures of the wall relief-panels, could hardly be surpassed for its elegant, even radiant, effect. In the scale of aesthetic values subscribed to by the patrons of this work, which we must assume is reflected here, refined sensitive elegance, craftsmanship, and attention to detail rank high. Ambika and Sarvānubhūti The complementary figures of the Yakși Ambikā and the Yakşa Sarvānubhūti appear as guardians throughout the Indra Sabhā and Jagannātha Sabhā cave complexes. For their sculptural prototypes we may look to the figures of Durgā and Kubera in the Brahmanical caves. Ambikā, mounted on a lion, sits under a mango tree, with one leg folded and the other hanging down, its foot resting on a lotuspedestal, and a child on her knee or at her side. Sarvānubhūti sits on an elephant, also with one foot up and one down, and he sits under a banyan tree. He holds in his hands the money-bag or purse, and a fruit. As guardians, they typically occupy positions either at the entrance to the cave, facing each other at opposite
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