The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.257

v2.c17.s1.257

As the three images are dressed in a variety of ways several times every day, with turbans of various styles, *cādars*, golden hands and other accessories, and no one can see the images in a nude state, except the priests employed in dressing them, the true chracter of the images cannot readily be known. No amount of dressing, however, can hide their innate deformity. They are exceedingly ugly and the most hideous caricatures of the ‘human form divine’. The people feel this much and to account for it usually refer to an accident. When Indradyumna obtained the sacred log brought by the sea, Viśvakarmā, celestial architect, appeared before him and undertook to carve the images on the condition that none should disturb him while he would be engaged in his task, locked up within the temple for a fortnight. Curiosity, however, got the better of prudence and discretion and the chamber was opened before the expiry of the fixed time, when, lo! the artist had disappeared and the images were left unfinished. None afterwards could venture to finish the work and so the images remain as we have them. This is an adaptation of a Buddhist story which Hiouen Thsang has quoted in his travels to account for the unfinished state of the original statue designed for the great temple at Buddha Gayā. It runs thus: