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470
The Structural Temples of Gujarat
were not averse to giving due justice to all the puruşarthas in their various artistic manifestations. 48
(c) Purely decorative type of ornament
Pre-Caulukyan temples have no animal figures, The river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna, in the Varaha temple at Kadvar must have had a tortoise and Makara as their vehicle but their form is hardly visible now.
In Caulukyan temples rows of horses and elephants appear as basement mouldings. It is found at Sunak, Ruhavi, Motab, Modhera and Somnath. It is absent in temple at Ghumli.
The elephant course (Gajathara) invariably decorates the temples of this period.
The horses, for instance at Sunak, are shown pancing in profile, and their spirited action, on the whole is well depicted. The elephants are sculptured side wise, so that only their trunk and head are visible but not the legs.
When exactly these courses began to be used as temple decorations is uncertain, but it seems to be soon after the Gupta period. For the treatment of animals is already conventional when we see them in the temples of 10th & 11th centuries.
48. As for the Canons about such sculptural representation some hints are noticed in certain works. The VDP. for instance enjoins that all the nine rasas including the Sringara may be illustrated in a temple ( III, XLIII, 1-15) The Sm. Su. also corroborates it (LXXXII, 1-3). The representation of nude figures was forbidden in the case of residential buildings. (as for instance in Silpratna XLVI, 9-10 and Vāsturatnākara, Grihopakarṇa prakaraṇa 77-78).
Nagatively it implies that the restriction did not apply to public buildings like temples. Canonical works like the Mayamata (XXXIX, 12) and the Silparatna (XLVI, 8-9) possitively prescribe that the decorative sculptures in temples must illustrate all the three vargas or puruṣārthas and include scences of life and postures of dancing etc.
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