Underground Shrine Queens Stepwell Patan

Author(s): Jaikishandas Sadani
Publisher: B J Institute of Learning & Research

Page 59

Underground Shrine : Queen's step-well at Patan
slightly bends to point to her toes. This reveals the profound knowledge of the art of dancing by ancient sculptors.
In one panel dedicated to music we see a maiden playing on flute. The whole pose is so graceful that we see her fully absorbed in the scintillating tunes of her celestial music. The sculptor has so faithfully represented the emotion or bhāva of the musician.
Thus in panel after panel we are spell bound to behold how the abstract beauty is transformed into most sublime graceful and enchanted concecrete forms on the walls of the sacred well. All these poses and compositions present the grace and beauty of human body charmingly chiselled by the great artists of profound insight and vision.
Nāga-Kanyās, Yoginis and Tantra
Nāgā-Kanyas, Yoginis and Tantric influences are aptly dealt with by the artists with equal zeal and insight. There are so many panels that depict in various poses, the tantric ethos.
Just two representative panels are indited to show the depth with which the masters have given vent to their creative genius. Tantric depictions are often treated with erotic expressions, but the artists of the step-well have not over-stepped that moral constraints in their compositions which would vitiate the devotional and spiritual serenity of this underground shrine. This balance of the corporal and the spiritual has been sadly missed by the artists of Konark and Khajurao though their creations in themselves are of. great artistic merit.
Nāgakanyā with a fish-bowl is an extra ordinary composition which has drawn the attention of connoisseurs of art. It has its own subtle message to give. Probably through this image the artist wished to convey how the Kama aspect of the four puruşārthas (Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksa) is to be judiciously handled. Lord Krsņa tells us in Gitā that He himself is Kāma within the constraints of Dharma or moral righteousness. This is aptly expressed in this fascinating panel.
A nude Nāgakanyā is holding a fish-bowl in her right hand. Her slim and graceful body is slightly bent and balanced on the left leg. A snake is coiling around her left thigh to reach the fish bowl, encircling from behind the back. Her left hand is raised restraining the serpent from further advances. Her figure is elegant and has very few ornaments - a necklace of beads round the neck, an armlet and bracelet and anklet round the ankles, earring in her ears. The rest of the body is bare, carved very realistically giving all anotomical details and contours. The image