A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s4: Section V. Western India

A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s4

Language: English

Section V. Western India

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The most important and characteristic examples of mediaeval sculpture in the west of India are to be found in the cave temples, which, small and great, number nearly a thousand. But for the purpose of illustration it will suffice to reproduce a few select specimens from the shrines at Bādāmī, Elūra (Ellora), and Elephanta, with two sculptures from temples of later date. The cave sculptures of interest range in date from the sixth to the eighth century. The best works in the structural temples may be assigned to the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

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The works of art are shared by all the three indigenous Indian religions—Brahmanical Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The Jain sculpture is so extremely formal and conventional that it possesses little interest, and the slight notice which it demands will be reserved for the concluding section of this chapter. The Buddhist and Brahmanical works are both numerous and very much alike in spirit and style. The spirit of the new art will be most easily understood from study of the Brahmanical, or apparently Brahmanical, sculptures, to which the few illustrations for which there is space will be restricted. In those days Buddhism was a dying Plate XLII. Deities in Vaishnava cave, Bādāmī. (Photo. 940, I. O. *List* = Pl. XXVI, *A. S. W. I.*, vol. i.)

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faith, slowly perishing by absorption into the enveloping mass of Hinduism. The Brahmanical works of art exceed the Buddhist, not only in number but in merit. To Mr. Havell and Dr. Coomaraswamy the compositions in the cave temples are ‘examples of the finest period of Hindu sculpture, from about the sixth to the eighth century, when orthodox Hinduism had triumphed over Buddhism’; but most European observers experience difficulty in appreciating the artistic qualities of those compositions. They are commonly so strange and monstrous, and very often so ugly, that an effort is needed to treat them seriously as fine art. Mr. Fry, commenting on Mr. Havell’s book, is more appreciative than many writers: ‘The free and picturesque composition from Ellora,’ he says, ‘representing “Ravana under the mountain of Kailāsa”, complicated though it is, is held together by the dramatic beauty of movement of the figures of Siva and Parvati. The same dramatic vitality is apparent in the struggle between Narisinha and Hiranya-Kasipu, also from Ellora. Indeed, all the Ellora sculptures here reproduced appeal to the European eye by a relatively greater observance of the laws of co-ordination, and by an evidence of dramatic force which indicates that Indian art did not always convey its meaning in a strange tongue.’¹ To be judged fairly the sculptures should be seen in the mass and among their solemn surroundings. They undoubtedly suffer grievously by being excerpted in bits and reproduced in illustrations a few inches square. While fully conscious of the difficulties inherent in the attempt to illustrate the colossal and fantastic creations of the cave sculptors within the limits of an ordinary page, I have tried to select fairly a small number of examples generally recognized as among the best.

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¹ *Quart. Rev.*, 1910, p. 235.

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The cave temples at Bādāmī in the Bījāpur District, Bombay, exhibit among other decorations long sculptured story-telling friezes, extremely curious, but so clumsily executed as hardly to deserve the name of works of art. They date from the closing years of the sixth century.² From an artistic point of view the bracket figures of a god and goddess on the top of a pilaster, as shown in Plate XLII, are by far the best things at Bādāmī. They have the great merit of not being ugly, and are within measurable distance of being beautiful, but lack the vitality of the early Buddhist art, or even of the nearly contemporary Gupta art in Northern India.

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² Described, and illustrated with other sculptures, by seven plates in *Ind. Ant.*, vi, pp. 354–66. They are of much interest for reasons other than aesthetic.

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The repulsive nature of the subjects often chosen by the cave sculptors is well exemplified by the Bhairava and Kālī group in the *Das Avatār*, or ‘Ten Incarnations’ temple at Elūra (Ellora), dating from about A.D. 700 (Pl. XLIII), described by Dr. Burgess as follows:—

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‘Beginning on the north side with the Saiva sculptures—the first from the door is Bhairava or Mahādeva in his terrible form; and a more vivid picture of the terrific a very diseased imagination only could embody. The gigantic figure lounges forward holding up his elephant-hide, with necklace of skulls (*muṇḍmālā*) depending below his loins; round him a cobra is knotted, his open mouth showing large teeth, while

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Plate XLIII. Bhairava; Dasāvatār Cave, Elūra. (Photo. 1371, I. O. *List* = Pl. XXII. 2, *A. S. W. I.*, vol. v.)

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with his *triśūla* [trident] he has transfixed one victim, who, writhing on its prongs, seems to supplicate pity from the pitiless; while he holds another by the heels with one of his left hands, raising the *damru* [small drum] as if to rattle it in joy, while he catches the blood with which to quench his demon thirst. To add to the elements of horror, Kālī, gaunt and grim, stretches her skeleton length below, with huge

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FIG. 152. Siva dancing; in Lankeśvara-Kailās temple. (*A. S. W. I.*, vol. v, p. 32, Pl. XXIX, 2; from a drawing by H. Cousens.)

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mouth, bushy hair, and sunken eyeballs, having a crooked knife in her right hand, and reaching out the other with a bowl, as if eager to share in the gore of its [*sic*] victim; behind her head is the owl [one species is called Bhairava], the symbol of destruction, or a vampire, as fit witness of the scene. On the right, in front of the skeleton, is Pārvatī; and higher up, near the feet of the victim Ratnāsura, is a grinning face [Figure: A. Das Avatār Cave, Elūra, *cir.* 700 A.D. B. Kailās temple, Elūra, *cir.* 775 A.D. PLATE XLIV. Rescue of Mārkaṇḍeya by Śiva. (*A. S. W. I.*, vol. v, Pl. XXIV; from drawings by H. Cousens.)]

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drawing out its tongue. Altogether the group is a picture of the devilish; the very armlets Bhairava wears are ogre faces.’ ¹

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¹ Fergusson and Burgess, *The Cave Temples of India*, p. 346 (1880).

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[Figure: FIG. 153. Vishnu taking the third stride; Cave 16, Elūra. (Photo. supplied by Prof. Macdonell.)]

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‘The religion which finds expression in imagery so truly devilish is not a pleasant subject of contemplation, and no amount of executive skill or cleverness in the production of scenic effect can justify, on aesthetic grounds, such a composition, which is frankly hideous. Its claim to be considered a work of art rests solely upon its display of power in a semi-barbaric fashion. The horror of the subject and its treatment is not redeemed by any apparent ethical lesson. Indeed Puranic and Tantric Hinduism (including late Buddhism) concerns itself little with ethics. The earlier Buddhism, as a religion, busied itself mainly with morals, and consciously aimed at ‘the welfare and happiness of all creatures’, a noble ideal which found its utterance in art. In Brahmanical Hinduism of all varieties each man seeks at the most his own personal salvation, and so Brahmanical art seldom exhibits a trace of human sympathy, a defect dearly purchased by its much praised idealism.

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A subject rarely represented in sculpture, the rescue by the god Siva of his worshipper Mārkaṇḍeya from the clutches of the messenger of Yama, god of death, appears twice at Elūra, and is treated with less grimness than the Bhairava group. The earlier composition in the Das Avatār Cave (Plate XLIV, Fig. A) is more vigorous than that at the Kailās (Fig. B), half a century or more later in date. The two groups may be considered to be favourable specimens of the cave sculpture in its milder forms.

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The sculptures in the Lankeśvara section of the Kailās temple are commended as having been ‘executed with great care and minute detail’. The best known, and perhaps the most meritorious, is that exhibiting Siva performing the Tāṇḍava dance (Fig. 152), a work remarkable for the good modelling of the principal image, and the scrupulous exactitude of the carving.

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A good Vishnu at Elūra is shown in Fig. 153. The god is imagined as striding through the seven regions of the universe in three steps, and is here shown as taking the third step.

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The famous caves on the island of Elephanta in Bombay Harbour are supposed to date from the eighth century. The colossal sculptures, imposing and effective when viewed in the recesses of the caverns, are not of a very high class of art, and do not bear reproduction in detail well. The first of the two specimens selected is the favourite subject of the marriage of Siva with Pārvatī (Fig. 154); and the second is the representation of Siva as the Great Ascetic (Fig. 155), which may be compared with the far finer Gupta treatment of the same subject (*ante*, Pl. XXXIV). The Elephanta Siva is merely a modified squatting Buddha in an inferior style. The extremely intimate relation which existed between the Siva worship of the Brahmanical Hindus

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FIG. 154. Marriage of Siva and Pārvatī; Elephanta. (I. O. *List*, photo. No. 1314.)

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and the mediaeval cult of the Tantric Buddhists has been mentioned already more than once. The subject was treated in a special essay written in 1828 by Brian Hodgson, who, when Resident in Nepāl, showed a picture of the famous Trimūrti, or three-headed god, at Elephanta to a 'well-informed old Bauddha [Buddhist]'. He promptly 'recognized it as a genuine Bauddha image! As he did many others, declared by our writers to be Saiva.'¹ It is quite possible that some of the so-called Brahmanical caves of Western India may be Buddhist in reality.

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¹ *Or. Qu. Mag.*, vii, 218 *seqq.*; *Languages, &c., of Nepāl*, 133 *seqq.*, as quoted by Sir R. Temple in *Ind. Ant.*, xxii, p. 363.

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The Brahmanical structural temple at Amarnāth (Ambarnāth) in the Thāna District, thirty-eight miles from Bombay, dating probably from the eleventh century, was minutely surveyed in 1868–9. According to the *Gazetteer*, 'The sculpture both on the pillars of the hall and round the whole of the outside shows a degree of skill that is not surpassed on any temple in the Bombay Presidency.’ It has the extravagant character common to the productions of the age. One illustration may be given (Fig. 157). It is a poor thing, but as good as anything else in the building.¹

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¹ *Imp. Gaz.* (1908), *s.v.* Amarnāth; *Bomb. Gaz.*, vol. xiv, pp. 2–8; *Ind. Ant.*, iii, 316 *seqq.*, with plates.

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The twelfth-century temple at Karvati (Kiruvatti), Dhārwār District, Bombay, is richly adorned with florid sculpture, represented at its best by the bracket statuette (Fig. 156). The scroll device is better suited for execution in metal than in stone. The ancient ‘Atlas’ motive may be observed.

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FIG. 155. Siva as the Great Ascetic; Elephanta. (I. O. *List*, photo. No. 1319.)

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Certain other sculptures may be briefly mentioned. At the temple of the Sun at Thān in Kāthiāwār, images believed to date from the seventh century are described as being in high relief, almost detached, well proportioned and posed, with vigorous expression, and generally resembling the bold and heavy work of the cave-temples. The sandstone carvings of many deities at the Navalākhā temple of Sejakpur near Thān are praised as being ‘crisp’; and the full-length lions or griffins at the temple of Muni Bāva, south of Thān, resembling the *yālis* of Dravidian shrines, are an unusual feature in the west.² Mr. Cousens also mentions an image of Hari-Hara lying on the Purandhar Hill, Poona District, probably of the eleventh or twelfth century, as being richly designed and well carved, a fine example of the ‘best period of work’.³