The Hindu Temple v2.c12.305

v2.c12.305

The Apsarā has her body—of a rampant lioness—wreathed around her axis. It is weighted on both ends, above is her large head and below is the contracted shape of the Gaṇa. In this way it is demarcated against the thin ribs of the vault whose curves are also those of the image. The globes however of head and breasts, bosses and knobs are set across the brittle, ambiguous context, palpably, reassuringly, as halting points in a mother of pearl iridescence of light caught and absorbed by the carved surfaces of this vault. (Cf. Pl. LXIII, which illustrates a different and more compact unity of wall and figure, from the outside of the same temple.)