History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c13.57

v1.c13.57

upper storey of the Rāṇī Nūr cave possesses two or three independent sculptures at each end of the verandah, such as a warrior clad in mail, and lions. The presence of this warrior and the style of his armour led earlier writers to state that this was the image or statue of a Greek soldier. Even Sir John Marshall says: "In this connection a special significance attaches to the presence in the upper storey of a door-keeper garbed in the dress of a Yavana warrior, and of a lion and a rider near by treated in a distinctly Western-Asiatic manner, while the guardian door-keepers of the lower storey are as characteristically Indian as their workmanship is immature." The figure of the so-called Yavana warrior has suffered very severely and it is not possible to make out any of the features. The coat of mail worn is distinctly similar to that of the warrior on the Barhut railing,¹ and there are no reasons to persuade us in the 20th century that this figure should be taken to be that of a Greek warrior, simply because writers of the 19th century, when our knowledge of Indian sculpture was very immature, supposed it to be so. Besides these three cave temples, there are a number of others belonging to the same period or a slightly later date. In the Gaṇeśa Gumphā, which lies to the left of the Rāṇī Nūr Gumphā, there are two elephants, probably of the same date, in front of the widest opening between the pillars of the verandah. The series of pre-Christian caves on the Udaygiri start just at the place where the low slope of the hill begins and the first cave, one meets with, is a low cell, after which comes another cell, slightly higher, which has a typically Indo-Persepolitan doorway flanked by a couple of elephants. After the Chhoṭa Hāthi Gumphā come a series of excavations partly double-storeyed, which contain very few ornaments. Originally there were stone-cut steps leading to the upper storeys, many of which can be used even now. Such are the Alakāpurī and Jayāvijayā caves. This series of caves rise gradually in height until the Svargapurī and Mañchapuri and the Baḍā Hāthi Gumphā with the inscription of Khāravela are reached. On two sides of and over the Hāthi Gumphā there are a number of large and small caves mostly plain and without any ornaments. To the proper right of this natural cavern there are some caves with freak shapes. One of these is designed to represent the open mouth of a tiger, and was excavated by a town judge named Subhūti or Bhūti¹ ; the other has its small and narrow entrance placed under the expanded head of a great snake, consisting of five different hoods. It was excavated by two persons named Karma and Halakhiṇā (Sulakshaṇā), perhaps husband and wife. There is a long bas-relief in the rear wall of the verandah of the Gaṇeśa cave, in the same style as the upper and lower verandahs of the Rāṇī Nūr Cave. The subject of the bas-relief in the Gaṇeśa Gumphā is the same as that in the Rāṇī Nūr ; but here, as in the former, the depiction is abridged. From the Baḍā Hāthi Gumphā a roadway leads down the hill and one reaches a number of plain caves near the level of the Chandka road, which are now called Haridāsa Gumphā, Jambeśvara Gumphā, etc. From the beginning of the Christian era to the 9th or 10th centuries A. D.