Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c13.s1.t7.3

c13.s1.t7.3

The great peculiarity of the series is the extreme simplicity of the caves composing it. Here we do not find figures of guardians and men and women as at Karle. There is evidence that the Chaitya halls were plastered and painted. The Chaitya hall at Mānmoda has a façade with elaborate sculpture, which is also a quite unique style. On its lowermost circular front which is conceived in the form of an expanded lotus, the petal in the centre is carved with the standing figure of Śrī-Lakṣmī in the midst of side lotuses with her right hand in *abhayamudrā* and left held akimbo (*kaṭyavalambita*). She is flanked by two elephants performing her *abhiṣeka* and standing on lotuses, both being carved in similar petals as the Goddess herself. Next to the elephants are male and female worshippers, i.e. *dampatis* in *añjalimudrā* or the attitude of adoration on both sides of the group. This treatment of the Goddess Gaja-Lakshmī has been conceived here in an especially charming manner both by the position over the doorway and lotus back-ground. Though found at Bharhut, Sanchi, Bodhgaya and Udaigiri, it is seldom that Goddess Śrī-Lakshmī occupies so important a position as she does here. She was representing an ancient folk-cult which is given an open welcome in the religious setting of Buddhist Chaitya halls. On the edge of the small semi-circular centre of the sculpture on this façade is an inscription stating that, ‘the half front was the gift of Chanda, a Yavana’. This is important as pointing to the faith of the donor with *Bhāgavata* affiliation similar to that of Heliodoros, who erected the Garuḍa-dhvaja at Besnagar. Above the fronton (*kīrtimukha*), on each side of its finial, are figures:—on the right a Nāgarāja with hoods rising from shoulder, and on the left a Garuḍa with wings from his shoulder, and behind each is a Stūpa in high relief. This representation of the Nāga-Garuḍa motif is also a unique feature which the ingenious author of this decorative conception adopted on the façade of a Buddhist Chaitya in company with Śrī-Lakshmī and Stūpas. On the two sides of the *kīrtimukha* window and a little removed from it are two door-jambs and a lintel above them, the whole forming a beautiful frame which is quite impressive and lofty and decorated with a series of bigger and smaller Chaitya windows, themselves framed by Vedikā design.