Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c29.7

c29.7

There is however another outstanding feature on this central zone-of-the-temple exterior, a decorative motif and one which fills in the wall spaces between the openings mentioned above. This takes the form of two, and sometimes three, parallel friezes, conjoined and following the alternate projections and recesses of the walls and carried round the entire building. Peopled with groups of statuary moulded in high relief, and in dimensions rather less than half life-size, these friezes present a moving pageant and never-ending procession of lifelike forms, shapely in appearance, exquisite in workmanship and of inexhaustible interest. On one temple alone, that of the Kandariya Mahadeo, the figures thus depicted are six hundred and fifty in number, and each building accommodates a similar community in proportion to its size (Plate XCI) Some of the figures are apparently ideal human beings, while others are divine personages, but all are in elegant attitudes and some are posed with a Hellenic grace recalling the rhythmic forms on a classic vase. Unlike the sombre saints who look down from Gothic niches, those on the walls of the Khajuraho temples are of a warm and gladsome nature, living in a happy golden age, when time was one long sequence of pleasurable experiences. With such an animated throng ever present on these structures it is not remarkable that the architecture pulsates with a human vitality not ordinarily found in the building art.