Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c47.35

c47.35

This theory finds some support from the fact that the style of the work at Mahabalipuram seems to show a close connection with the Deccan. The cave-sculptures at Mahabalipuram both in the subject represented and in the manner of their execution bear a certain resemblance to those at Badami. Further, there is a remarkable similarity between the Pallava sculpture known as "Arjuna's Penance" and some of the work at Ajanta On this point, the authors of the "Cave Temples of India" observe (p 157) that "Even if this great bas-relief does not afford us much information regarding the rock-cut architecture of Eastern India, it has at least the merit of fixing almost beyond cavil the age of the various objects of interest at Mahavallipur. The sculptures, for instance, of Cave XXIV at Ajanta, are so nearly identical that their age cannot be far apart. We have in these the same flying figures, male and female, the same Kinnaras (harpies) the same style of sculpture in every respect, and such as is not found either before or afterwards. As this Ajanta cave is only blocked out, and only finished in parts, it is probably the latest excavation there and may therefore with certainty be assumed to belong to the seventh century of our era, and most probably the later half of it "