Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c32.8

c32.8

The pillars, also of the Deccani style, are of an original order, as apart from the frequent use of the *kani* moulding, they have other decisive features No struts or detached brackets are used in the capitals, but above the uppermost moulding is a support in the shape of a scroll or volute, almost Ionic in its graceful curves The vase and foliage motif is conspicuous by its absence, an inadequate attempt to reproduce it however being occasionally discernible. Although the greater part of the pillar shaft is richly moulded, the lower third is usually a severely plain square prism, a contrast almost too pronounced to be pleasing. Yet this was not always the practice, as in some of the larger temples the lower part of the pillar was so profusely sculptured with figures as to form a kind of shrine. To produce the fine mouldings on the pillars, these were turned on a large and somewhat crude type of lathe, a technical process freely employed by the Chalukyan craftsmen, from whom it was no doubt derived, and which enabled the sharp knife-edged section (*kani*) to be readily obtained. A pillared treatment was introduced into the jambs of the shrine doorways in the form of an attached pillar, or nook-shaft, evidently suggested by the pilasters on some of the rock-cut shrines of the previous period. That the rock-cut tradition of this region still lingered is shown in a striking manner by the design of one of these structural temples of the eleventh century. As an example of the living influence of the powerful rock-cut phase, at Balsane there is a temple (No. 5) the plan of which, with its portico, pillared hall, series of cells on either side the cella with its vestibule, is in the arrangement of these compartments, almost an exact counterpart of a Mahayana Buddhist monastery excavated out of the rock in the seventh century A.D