A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c12.s1.7

c12.s1.7

At the Tigawā temple in the Jabalpur District (*ante*, p. 32) the Ganges goddess is represented with attendants, in a composition more elaborate than that at Udayagiri, and, like it, deserving of praise for good naturalistic modelling, free from the exaggerations of the female form so common in Hindu art and so disagreeable to good taste.¹ River goddesses in the same style are to be seen on the tops of the jambs at the entrance to Cave XXII at Ajaṇṭā, dating from somewhere about a. d. 500, and approximately contemporary with the Tigawā temple.² But the best image of Gaṅgā known to me is that on a panel at Besnagar, which may be fairly called beautiful, and must be of about the same age as the Tigawā and Ajaṇṭā images (Fig. 112). It is, perhaps, worth noting that the Indian conception of a river goddess has nothing in common with the recumbent Greek river god.