Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c23.24

c23.24

These monolithic shrines were of Saivite attribution, and in their proximity are images, also carved in the rock, of a lion, an elephant, and a bull, symbolising respectively Durga, Indra, and Siva. Yet the fact that these Siva shrines are in a style of architecture traditionally associated with the Buddhists, seems to imply that they were a type of structure not the monopoly of any one religion, but had a common origin There is evidence in support of this in certain emblematical subjects carved within the gable ends of the three chaitya hall examples, each of which is full of allegory. (Plate LX) And in more than one of them there is a central symbol not unlike a stupa. Each gable illustrates a conventional or diagrammatic rendering of a prayer-hall, the curved barge-boards taking the place of the vaulted roof, the decorated brackets on either side simulating the ribs of the vault, while, most significant of all, the central object is a tabernacle or sacred relic. Each of these representations of tabernacles or reliquaries takes a different form, just as the ratha on which it is depicted also is of a certain design, so that both ratha and reliquary may be identified as belonging to one another. It is possible therefore that each ratha is a shrine consecrated to one of the manifestations of Siva, its shape being conditioned by the tradition which has ordained that it should take such a form for that particular manifestation.