Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c6.27

c6.27

In the pillars we find little in common so far as their general outlines are concerned; but, in their details, the cave pillars present some earlier forms. The characteristic pot and the cushion capitals, and the pot bases of the earlier caves, such as at Kārli and Elephanta, are not found in those early forms in the structural temple work, but those of the later can, in some cases, be traced back to the earlier forms. The pot and foliage feature which, in the cave-temples and in its more stereotyped form in Gujarāt and the Dakhan, is so universally used, does not occur upon the pillars of Chālukyan temples, but it is found as a very conspicuous ornament alone upon the walls of porches and in similar positions. Figure 118 in Fergusson's *History of Indian and Eastern Architecture* (Volume I, Revised Ed.) shows this in its simplest and most natural form as it occurs upon a pillar in cave XIX at Ajantā, and it may be compared with the same feature upon the pillars in the Tringalvādi cave (Fig. 10) and the temple of Lakshmī-Nārāyana at Pedgāon (Plate LXXXIII).¹ Above the pot and foliage in the first is seen the *kīrtimukha* face which is so much used in the ornamental detail of both the caves and the later temples. This is noticed more fully further on.