A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s3.34

c13.s3.34

The two unrivalled Jain temples on Mount Ābū, the earlier built by Vimala Sāha in A. D. 1031, and the later by Tejpāl in A. D. 1230 (*ante*, p. 32, and Pls. VI and VII), have each at the entrance a chamber known as the 'elephant room'. Each of these rooms contains ten statues of elephants, said to be sculptured in every detail with exquisite care, which formerly carried riders. All the riders in the later building have disappeared, but inscribed slabs still existing record that the figures included portrait images of the founders, Vastupāla with two wives, and Tejpāl with his one wife, Anūpama. Some of the riders in Vimala Sāha’s ‘elephant room’ appear to exist still, but I am not in a position to illustrate them.¹