South Indian Inscriptions

ARCHITECTURE SCULPTURE AND PAINTING

...This temple also is flat-roofed like that at Tigōwā, but it is two-storeyed, the place of the later spire being taken by a small chamber constructed over the garbhagṛiha, There is no staircase to reach this upper chamber. It seems, therefore, to have been intended to indicate the position of the sanctum. The roof of this chamber also is flat, clearly showing that there was no śikhara over it. This chamber, in course of time, developed into the śikhara, of which we find the earliest form in the Gupta temple at Dēogaḍh.¹ The temple at Nachnā is thus somewhat later than that at Tigowā, but earlier than the one at Dēogaḍh. It may therefore be referred approximately to the last quarter of the fifth century A.C.

... Another peculiarity of the Pārvatī temple at Nachnā is that it has a covered pradakshiṇāPatha (path of circumambulation) which is not noticed in the earlier Gupta temples at Sāñchi, Ēraṇ and Tigōwā. Its garbhagṛiha is nearly square in plan, measuring 15 ft. 9 in. by 15 ft. It is surrounded on all sides by a roofed verandah, 5 ft. in width, closed by a wall, three ft. thick, which serves as a path for circumambulation. The front wall has an entrance opposite the door of the garbhagṛiha. In front of the entrance there is an open unroofed court, nearly 12 ft. in length and breadth, which is approached by a flight of steps.²

... The doorway of the grabhagṛiha is very richly decorated. The door-frame has two bands.³ The inner one has at the bottom a haloed male door-keeper (pratīhāra). Above this there is a beautiful scroll of a creeper issuing from the navel of a squatting male figure. The outer band has at the bottom the figure of the river goddess Gaṅgā on the left and the Yamunā on the right,⁴ above which there are small decorative panels of mithunas. The pillars outside this door-frame are decorated with horizontal bands of various designs, while the lintel over them has three beautiful chaitya-windows. At the end of the lintel on either side there is a large figure of a goddess standing over a lotus and attended by a female. ‘The figures of this temple’, says Cunningham, ‘are much superior to all mediaeval sculpture, both in the ease and gracefulness of their attitudes as well as in the real beauty of form.⁵

... The upper chamber is quite plain, both inside and outside. It is lighted by means of two chaitya-windows, one in each side wall. The garbhagṛiha receives its light through two window of simple square holes fixed in its side walls just opposite the chaitya-windows in the outer walls of the pradakshiṇā-patha. The outer faces of the walls are carved to imitate rock-work, lions, bears, peacocks, monkeys, deer, yakshas, gaṇas, etc. being sculpture here and there in small niches to give them the appearance of caves.

... The external appearance of the temple at Nachnā shows that its form was imitated from a rock-cut cave. In fact the earliest existing shrines in India are in the form of rock-cut vihāras and chaityas. The artists of ancient Vidarbha excelled in this art also. Some of the most magnificent caves at Ajaṇṭā hewn out of solid rock, which still exist in a fair condition, testify to the skill of the artisans of that age. The Vihāra caves XVI and XVII and the Chaitya Cave XIX––all of which belong to the Vākāṭaka age-are, according to Burges, both from their architecture and their paintings, as full of beauty and interest as any caves in the West of India.⁶

Of these three caves, Cave XVI was excavated by Varāhadēva, who was a minister
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¹The Gupta Temple at Deogarh (M.A.S.I., No. 70), p. 8.
² See the plan of the temple. C.A.S.R., Vol., XXI, pl. XXV.
³ See Pl. XVI in P.R.A.S.I., W.C. for 1918-19. See also Plate H. ⁴ These river goddesses appear just below the prolonged lintel of the temple at Tigōwā.
⁵ C.A.S.R., Vol. XXI, p. 96.
⁶ C.T.I., p 302.