South Indian Inscriptions

ARCHITECTURE SCULPTURE AND PAINTING

coiffures and jewellery¹. Outside, in a niche at the bottom of the left wall of the court there is beautiful panel of the Nāgarāja and his wife. A serpent has spread its seven hoods over the head of the Nāgarāja. Another hood is seen over the head of his wife. Both of them wear high jewelled crowns and several ornaments. To the proper right of the Nāgarāja there is an attendant with a chaur^ī2. As stated before, there is a similar panel of the Nāgarāja and his wife in a small excavation near Cave XVI also.

... Inside, the Gandhakuṭī is 24 ft. wide by 46 ft. long and 24 ft. 4 in. high. The earlier caves of this type were perfectly plain, but this is elaborately carved. The nave has 15 pillars, 11 ft. high. They have a square base, above which their shaft becomes first octagonal and then circular, with horizontal bands of beautiful tracery. The circular portion is either plain or decorated with perpendicular or spiral flutes. Above this is the āmalaka portion which is surmounted by a bracket capital with the figure of the seated Buddha in the middle and elephants, śārdūlas or flying gandharvas on the brackets. Above a plain architrave there is an entablature, 5 ft. high, which is divided into compartments by vertical bands of various designs³. The compartments contain images of the Buddha, stand ing or seated. The dome rises 8 ft. 4 in. high.

... The Chaitya contains, inside a niche and under an arch resting on two beautifully carved demi-pillars, a bas-relievo figures of the Buddha clad in a long robe. Above the dome is the usual harmikā with a small image of the seated Buddha surmounted by three umbrellas one over another, each being upheld by four figures on four sides. The roof of the aisles is flat and is decorated with flower scrolls, figures of the Buddha, etc. The walls also have paintings of the Buddhas with halos, seated or standing.

...This is the first instance of a chaitya cave wholly in stone. In earlier caves like that at Karle the ribs of the nave and the umbrellas over the chaitya were in wood. Here they are all in stone. ‘Nothing in or about it is or ever was in wood, and many parts are so lithic in design that if we did not know to the contrary, we might not be able to detect at once the originals from which they were derived. The transformation from wood to stone is complete in this cave⁴

... Some more caves of the Vākāṭaka age exist near the village Gulwāḍā, about 11 miles west of Ajaṇṭā. They are known as the Ghaṭōtkacha caves and were excavated, like Cave XVI at Ajaṇṭā, by Varāhadēva, a minister of the Vākāṭaka king Harishēṇa. They are situated in a deep gorge.

... There were apparently three caves excavated here, of which only two are now extant, the third being known only from some traces left behind. Both the caves that are still standing were of the vihāra type, but the pillars and pilasters of the smaller one are now almost entirely destroyed, only the bracket of a pillar and a pilaster still remaining. The bracket has the curious representation of four deer with common head . It will be remembered that the capitals of the pillars of the temple at Tigōwā had at the corners the repre- sentations of two lions with a common head.

... The larger cave, however, is in a fairly good state of preservation, though in its case also, the front pillars of the verandah are completely destroyed. There is a mutilated inscription⁵ on the back wall of the verandah at the north end, from which we learn that it was
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¹ Ajanta, Part IV, pl. LXXV (a).
² Ibid., Part IV, pl. LXXVI (b).
³ Ibid., Part IV, pl. LXXV (b).
⁴ C.T.I., p. 317.
⁵ No. 26.