DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0342
318 ARCHITECTURE IX THE HIMALAYAS. Book III.
(Woodcut No. 81); in the courtyard of the Viswakarma, at Ellora
(Woodcut No. 63); and in some of the later caves at Ajunta—the
twenty-fourth for instance. It is found at Enin (Woodcut No.
179), among some fragments that I believe to be of the age of
the Guptas, about a.d. 400, and it is currently employed in the
middle group of Hindu caves at Ellora, such as the Ashes of Havana,
and other caves of that age, say about a.d. GOO. It afterwards
became frequent, almost universal, with the Jains, down to the
time of the Mahomedan conquest. The preceding representation of
one (Woodcut No. 180), from a half column of a temple in Orissa,
shows it in a skeleton form, and therefore more suited to explain its
construction than a fuller capital would do. On its introduction, the
bell-shaped or Persepolitan capital seems to have gone out of fashion,
and does not again appear in Indian art.
To return from this digression : there can lie no doubt that the
temple of Baijnath is dedicated to Siva, not only from the presence
of the bulls in front of it, in pavilions of the same architecture as the
porch, but also because Ganesa appears among its integral sculptures ;
yet, strange to say, the back niche, is occupied by a statue of Maba-
vira, the last Jaina Tirthankar, with a perfectly legible inscription,
dated in A.D. 1240.1 It looks as if the age of toleration had not passed
even them.
Cunningham, ' Archsologioal Reports,' vol. v. p. 183.
(Woodcut No. 81); in the courtyard of the Viswakarma, at Ellora
(Woodcut No. 63); and in some of the later caves at Ajunta—the
twenty-fourth for instance. It is found at Enin (Woodcut No.
179), among some fragments that I believe to be of the age of
the Guptas, about a.d. 400, and it is currently employed in the
middle group of Hindu caves at Ellora, such as the Ashes of Havana,
and other caves of that age, say about a.d. GOO. It afterwards
became frequent, almost universal, with the Jains, down to the
time of the Mahomedan conquest. The preceding representation of
one (Woodcut No. 180), from a half column of a temple in Orissa,
shows it in a skeleton form, and therefore more suited to explain its
construction than a fuller capital would do. On its introduction, the
bell-shaped or Persepolitan capital seems to have gone out of fashion,
and does not again appear in Indian art.
To return from this digression : there can lie no doubt that the
temple of Baijnath is dedicated to Siva, not only from the presence
of the bulls in front of it, in pavilions of the same architecture as the
porch, but also because Ganesa appears among its integral sculptures ;
yet, strange to say, the back niche, is occupied by a statue of Maba-
vira, the last Jaina Tirthankar, with a perfectly legible inscription,
dated in A.D. 1240.1 It looks as if the age of toleration had not passed
even them.
Cunningham, ' Archsologioal Reports,' vol. v. p. 183.