History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s4.72

v1.c19.s4.72

There is one other antiquity at a place called Sâluvankuppam, half a mile north of Mâmallapuram village, which deserves notice as a descendant of the tiger cave at Udayagiri near Katak (Woodcut No. 272). Here, not one, but a dozen tiger or lion heads welcome the anchorite to his abode, or rather, the devotee to his shrine (Woodcut No. 198). Here, too, they are conventionalised as we always find them in Chalukyan art; and this example serves, like every other, to show how the Hindû imagination in art runs wild when once freed from the trammels of sober imitation of natural things, which we found to be its characteristic in the early stages of Buddhist art.