Indian Antiquary Vol 05

SR No.: 032497
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 438
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 98

78
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1876.
front of the blocked-up door, are three loose From the west side of the water-cisterna sculptured stones, apparently of great age. The passage enters the rock and, ascending, passes largest is a standing figure of a nade Jina with along above the front aisle of the cave; and & serpent twisting up behind him, its seven hoods another seems to have entered high up in the projecting behind his head. The second, west gable end of the front aislo, and to have a short square pillar of very compact-grained turned round and passed along above the front stone, has & standing nude Jina on each face wall. What the object of these passages was I with a rude representation of triple chattris cannot conjecture, but by weakening the rock, over their heads, and a couple of flowers they probably were the principal cause of its or stars on the breast-bone. The third, a splitting along the line of the first, and falling small slab of the same stone as the last, bears down. a seated Jina with canopy, a worshipping The second large cave is a little to the east of figure at each knee, and four in front of the this, and, like it, faces the south. It is smaller, seat, engaged apparently in music and worship, however, and, though in fair preservation, has but rather time-worn. These and some other been so long pccupied, and is so cut up by stone figures all seem to support the idea that this has and mud walls that it is not easily examined. for long, if not originally, been a Jaina temple. It is about 59 feet square and 11 feet 3 inches
The chamber in which these figures now high, the roof being supported by twenty costand is about 17 feet by 12, with two pil- lamns, leaving an open hall of 35 feet square in lars in front, and two openings in the floor the middle surrounded by an aisle. Two of the into a large cistern of water.
columns on each side are round, and somewhat The fragment of the fa-ade of the cave that of the pattern of those at Elephanta, but withis left, shows it to have been elaborately carved out the bracket, and Autings of the capital, and to a height of 7' 44', with the chaitya window with a thinner and less projecting torus. The ornament in the upper course, little imitations capitals are 3' 7" high, and round the neck of of temples with Jinas sitting inside, and other the shaft is a band of floral sculpture and festoons figares between, in the next; under them a a foot in depth. The shafts taper from about line of lattice-work-such as occurs on the bases 2 10! to 27} in diameter, and stand on a of some of the Násik caves,-then some smaller low plinth. The square pillars have also square figures at intervals, and the usual quadrantal capitals very similar to those just described. On projecting member as the lower course.
each side the cave and in the back are four cells, Twenty-seven feet in advance of the cave, each about 84 feet square. The shrine in the and on a considerably lower level than the back is about 18 feet square, and contains a sitfloor, there has been a massive doorway 10 ting Jina of very nearly the same dimensions as or 11 feet wide with carved pediment-cut ap- that in the first cave. An attempt has been made parently out of the rock in situ ; but it is now to cover and restore it with some black comburied up to the lintel in the earth, and could position, but apparently this has been stopped not be excavated without giving trouble to the after an abortive attempt on the face. And here Brahmaņs attending on the modern temple of again we have the attendant figures and the Mahadeva that has been built just in front of snake-hoods, exactly the same as in the other it, and who seem to profit both by Saiva and cave but without the plaater, and with the wheel Śrávak visitors to the place. On the centre in front of the sixhasana almost entire. of the pediment can be traced the almost ob- In the cell to the left, or west, of the shrine literated lineaments of a seated Jina with a is a figure of a sitting Jina on a high throne, nimbus behind the head; on each side has been with figures behind, similar to those already a large Naga-headed figure with hands clasped described, only the place of the cobra-heads is in adoration, and the lower extremities carried supplied by a plain nimbus; the wheel in front out in wavy floral lines to the ends of the of the throne rests on a lotus-flower, the deer lintel; there are also some subordinate figures appear to have been omitted, while the lions almost quite obliterated.
are much damaged. A similar figure is carved on the wall of the Jains I Compare the makarz figure on the old Jain temple at Cave at Bldami.-See Archæol. Report for West. India, 1874, PL. IXXVI, fig. 3.
Pattadkel in Archaol. Rep. 1874, Pl. xlv. fig. 3.