DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70300#0167
CAVES OF ELLORA.
141
architect was not content with performing this gigantic work
in the centre, but has excavated the face of the cliff on each
side three or four stories, each twenty feet in height, and of
considerable depth ; these last I had not time to enter, as the
other caves I had to visit extended to the north and south,
about three quarters of a mile each way. When one considers
the immense labour expended on Keylas, where nothing but
the chisel and hammer could be used, which differs from
nearly all other temples, in not being built, but formed by
the superfluous rock torn from it, and the construction of
which is so contrary to the usual principles (as blocks of
stone were carried from, not to it, for its contemplation),
one hardly knows which to admire most, the projector, or the
person who carried the design into execution. Yet I feel
almost a partiality for the former; for, in what an original
and expanded mind must the idea first have been conceived
of hollowing out, and decorating, by the hand of man, a very
11 rib of the world,” spurning the detail of piecemeal building,
and thus taking advantage of the primeval materials placed
by nature on the spot, and wresting from her very bowels a
place of worship. Some of the sculptured decorations, and
the taste in the ornaments, would do credit to the best pe-
riod of the Grecian school, though in general an evidently
uncultivated style of architecture predominates; and the ir-
regular shapes and devices on the shafts of the pillars, with
their plain capitals, in the principal temple, are, in my opi-
nion, more rich than the plain Grecian pillar with its orna-
mental capital, though not so chaste. The fluting of the
Corinthian order is but a poor attempt of this description.
Some of the minute ornaments are even classical. I observed,
in several instances, the bust of a man from the head to the
middle, ending in a scroll or flourish, &c., and the wings of
birds having similar terminations. Nearly the entire bodies
of the largest figures project from the wall, and there is not,
throughout the whole, a single arch. Immediately on the
outside the gateway is a cistern of very fine water, which
141
architect was not content with performing this gigantic work
in the centre, but has excavated the face of the cliff on each
side three or four stories, each twenty feet in height, and of
considerable depth ; these last I had not time to enter, as the
other caves I had to visit extended to the north and south,
about three quarters of a mile each way. When one considers
the immense labour expended on Keylas, where nothing but
the chisel and hammer could be used, which differs from
nearly all other temples, in not being built, but formed by
the superfluous rock torn from it, and the construction of
which is so contrary to the usual principles (as blocks of
stone were carried from, not to it, for its contemplation),
one hardly knows which to admire most, the projector, or the
person who carried the design into execution. Yet I feel
almost a partiality for the former; for, in what an original
and expanded mind must the idea first have been conceived
of hollowing out, and decorating, by the hand of man, a very
11 rib of the world,” spurning the detail of piecemeal building,
and thus taking advantage of the primeval materials placed
by nature on the spot, and wresting from her very bowels a
place of worship. Some of the sculptured decorations, and
the taste in the ornaments, would do credit to the best pe-
riod of the Grecian school, though in general an evidently
uncultivated style of architecture predominates; and the ir-
regular shapes and devices on the shafts of the pillars, with
their plain capitals, in the principal temple, are, in my opi-
nion, more rich than the plain Grecian pillar with its orna-
mental capital, though not so chaste. The fluting of the
Corinthian order is but a poor attempt of this description.
Some of the minute ornaments are even classical. I observed,
in several instances, the bust of a man from the head to the
middle, ending in a scroll or flourish, &c., and the wings of
birds having similar terminations. Nearly the entire bodies
of the largest figures project from the wall, and there is not,
throughout the whole, a single arch. Immediately on the
outside the gateway is a cistern of very fine water, which