The Hindu Temple v1.c7.s2.24

v1.c7.s2.24

⁸³ To what extent each structural temple was originally plastered, or plastered and painted, is difficult to say. The cave temples of the Deccan, however, almost without exception were originally coated with plaster and painted, on their plain and straight, as much as on their carved and modelled surfaces. Ellora, especially in the Daśavatāra cave, Bādāmi and Ajaṇṭā have still painted plaster preserved on their images; especially in Ajaṇṭā, the large Bodhisattva figures in the sanctuaries of caves I and II, and on carved capitals and pillars, etc. In temples no longer in use whatever plaster there may have been has since disappeared or perhaps never existed at all, whereas it has been overlaid by the use of whitewash in those still in worship.