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YAŠASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
It will be seen that, among the incarnations of Vişnu, Varāha, Vāmana and Narasimha are the most frequent in the sculptural representations of that deity in the early temples of the Deccan. At Ellora, as in the Daśāvatāra cave, they are found also in the Kailasa temple, in the corridor surrounding the back half of the court. The ten incarnations of Vişņu are found sculptured on a huge rock at Badami, close behind the Bhutanātha group of temples. Upon the south side of this rock is a sculpture of Nārāyaṇa reclining upon Seșa, with the ten avatāras in a row above him, some on one side and some on the other side of Brahmā.” The sculpture in question is no doubt much earlier than the reference to the ten avatāras in Somadeva's Yasastilaka. The number of the avatāras came, as a matter of fact, to be fixed at ten long before the tenth century A. D. A verse inscription in Pallava-Grantha characters of about the eighth century A. D., found in the rock-cut temple of Varāha-Perumäl at Mahābalipuram, enumerates the ten incarnations as follows: the Fish, the Tortoise, the Boar, the Man-Lion, the Dwarf, Rāma, Rāma (Parasurāma), Rāma (Balarāma), Buddha and Kalkin.: The reference to the ten avatāras in Somadeva's work is, however, of some importance as showing that they were well-known, and probably worshipped, in the Deccan in the tenth century. The image of Nārāyaṇa with the ten avatāras, on the rock at Badami, is still worshipped, and a small shrine has been built for the purpose in front of the rock.*
The close contiguity of Saiva and Vaişņava shrines at Haveri, and probably also at Ittagi, is an indication of the harmonious co-existence of the two cults. Interesting examples of Saiva and Vaişņava shrines standing in close juxtaposition to one another have been found in Mysore State, at Marale in the Chikmangalur Taluk, and at Mosale, a village about eight miles to the south of Hassan. The twin temples at Mosale are ornate structures standing side by side, a few feet apart, and belong to the Hoysala style of architecture. They are identical in size and workmanship, and have been assigned, on architectural grounds, to the twelfth century A. D., when most of the ornate temples in Mysore State oame into being. One of the shrines is dedicated to Siva styled as Nāgesvara. while the other contains a Vişņu image called Channakeśava."
1 Burgess (op. cit.), p. 32. 2 Cousens (op. cit. ), p. 57. 3 Sastri: Two statues of Pallava Kings and Five Pallava Inecriptions. (Memoirs of
the Archaeological Survey of India ). p. 5. 4 Cousens (op. cit.), p. 57. 5 Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department for 1924, p. 6.
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