The Age of the Imperial Guptas c9.117

c9.117

As the Daśāvatāra temple is later than the early Gupta temples at Bhumra and Nachna Kuthara, the ornamentation is more profuse; but on account of the chastely bare side walls they are very well balanced. The increase in the number of large human figures at the bottom of the jambs and a corresponding increase in the width of the jambs is compensated by a greater width of the lintel. As at Bhumra the topmost course of the lintel is a row of dentils shaped as Kīrttimukhas. Here there is a caitya-window at each end of the eaves and a modified one in the centre, which, however, is without a medallion. At Deogadh all three caitya-windows are complete. There is one at the unbroken end of the early Gupta temple at Nachna Kuthara while there are five on the door-frame at Dah Parbatiya. In the succeeding century, there was a change: in the Post-Gupta temple at Nachna Kuthara, there are three complete caitya-windows on the eaves supported by pilasters, but there is no divine figure in high relief in the centre of the lower part of the lintel. For this reason alone the door-frame at Dah Parbitya appears to be older than that of the Post-Gupta temple at Nachna Kuthara. The Deogadh temple shows a marked difference in the object of worship, which is a huge liṅga; but the door frame indicates that originally it was a temple of Viṣṇu. The Bhumra temple bears on its lintel the bust of Śiva, but the Deogadh temple bears in the boss of the centre of the lintel a figure of Viṣṇu seated on the coils of the Nāga, Seṣa or Ananta, exactly of the same type as that to be found in cave No. III (Vaiṣṇava cave) at Badami in the Bijapur district of Bombay.¹ Some writers call this image the *Bhogāsana mūrti*,² but the authority of such a nomenclature has not been stated. The same writer has been misled by the mediaeval repairs to the Daśāvatāra temple in stating “ the wide platform on which the temples stand is also sculptured with scenes identified as being from the Rāmāyaṇa. Those reliefs and the pilasters that divide them are a little later in date.³ ” The pilasters and the bas-reliefs in the photograph may be slightly later in date, but the fragment of the architrave bearing a *caitya*-window with a dancing *Gaṇa* inside the medallion is certainly as early as any other part of the temple. The arrangement of the pillars and the fragments of the bas-reliefs along the sides of the platform of the Daśāvatāra temple is certainly not older than the 10th or the 11th century A.D. as proved by the fragment from the *Śikhara* of a mediaeval temple bearing on it rows of stylized *caitya*-windows of the same type to be still found on the *Śikhara* of the great Jain temple on the hill at Deogadh. Fragments of this period were excavated in the compound of the Daśāvatāra temple and two fragments of door-jambs were found by the writer leaning against the eastern steps to the path of circumambulation of the Daśāvatāra.