The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.44

Language: English

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It is in the upper storey of this cave that the inscription of Khāravela's Queen is incised, while in the lower are short records stating that the main and side chambers were the works, respectively, of Vakradeva (Vakadepasiri or Kudepasiri), the successor, apparently, of Khāravela, and of Prince Vaḍukha. It may be presumed, therefore, that the upper storey is the earlier of the two. The rail pattern which once adorned the broad band of rock between the two storeys is now all but obliterated, but in the ground-floor verandah is a well preserved frieze which confirms by its style what the inscriptions might otherwise lead us to suppose: namely, that, next to the Hāthi Gumphā, this was the most ancient cave in the two groups. Some of the reliefs of this frieze are illustrated in Pl. XXVII, 74. Like most of the sculptures in this locality they are of poor, coarse workmanship, but in the depth of the relief and plastic treatment of the figures they evince a decided advance on the work of Bhārhut, and, unless it be that sculpture in this part of India had undergone an earlier and independent development (a supposition for which there is no foundation) it is safe to affirm that they are considerably posterior to the sculptures of Bhārhut. Next, in chronological sequence, comes the Ananta Gumphā—a single-storeyed cave planned in much the same way as the Manchapurī, which seems to have been the prototype of all the more important caves excavated on this site.

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Over the doorways of this cave are ornamental arches enclosing various reliefs; in one is a standing figure of Lakshmī supported by the usual elephants on lotus flowers (Pl. XXVII, 75); in another is the four-horse chariot of the Sun-god (?) depicted *en face*, with the crescent moon and stars in the field; in a third are elephants; in a fourth, a railed-in tree and figures to right and left of it bearing offerings in their hands or posed in an attitude of prayer. The arch fronts themselves are relieved by bands of birds or of animals and Amorini at play or of garlands intertwined, and over each is a pair of triple-headed snakes, while in the intermediate spaces are flying Gandharvas disposed in separate panels (Pl. XXVII, 76). The last mentioned are more stiff and schematic than the similar figures in the Manchapurī cave, and this taken in conjunction with other features, such as the chubby Amorini and the treatment of the Sun-god's chariot, seems to indicate for these sculptures a date not much earlier than the middle of the first century b.c. A further stage in the development of this architecture is reached in the Rānī Gumphā, which is at once the most spacious and elaborately decorated of all the Orissan caves (Pl. XXVIII, 79). It consists of two storeys, each originally provided with a verandah—the lower 43 feet in length with three cells behind, the upper 20 feet longer with four cells behind;

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in addition to which there are chambers of irregular plan in the wings, to right and left of the verandahs. In both storeys the façades of the cells are enriched with pilasters and highly ornate friezes illustrating episodes connected with the Jain religion, of which unfortunately the interpretation has not yet been established. The friezes resemble each other closely, so far as their general treatment is concerned, but the style of the sculptures in the two storeys is widely different. In the upper (cf. Pl. XXVIII, 78) the composition is relatively free, each group forming a coherent whole, in which the relation of the various figures to one another is well expressed; the figures themselves are posed in natural attitudes; their movement is vigorous and convincing; and from a plastic and anatomical point of view the modelling is tolerably correct. In the lower, on the other hand, the reliefs are distinctly elementary and crude. The best of them, perhaps, is the group reproduced in Pl. XXVIII, 77, but even here the figures are composed almost as independent units, connected only by their tactile contiguity; their postures, too, are rigid and formal, particularly as regards the head and torso, which are turned almost direct to the spectator, and in other respects the work is stiff and schematic. At first sight, it might appear that in proportion as these carvings are more primitive-looking, so they are anterior to those of the upper storey;

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but examined more closely they betray traces here and there of comparatively mature art, which suggest that their defects are due rather to the clumsiness and inexperience of the particular sculptors responsible for them than to the primitive character of plastic art at the time when they were produced. Accordingly, it seems probable that in this cave, as in the Manchapurī, the upper of the two floors was the first to be excavated, though the interval of time between the two was not necessarily a long one; and there is good reason, also, to suppose that the marked stylistic difference between the sculptures of the two storeys was the result of influence exercised directly or indirectly by the contemporary schools of Central and North-Western India. In this connexion a special significance attaches to the presence in the upper storey of a doorkeeper garbed in the dress of a Yavana warrior, and of a lion and rider near by treated in a distinctively Western-Asiatic manner, while the guardian door-keepers of the lower storey are as characteristically Indian as their workmanship is immature. It is significant, too, that various points of resemblance are to be traced between the sculptures of the upper floor and the Jain reliefs of Mathurā, where, as we have already seen, the artistic traditions of the North-West were at this time obtaining a strong foothold.

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The pity is that the example of these outside schools made only a superficial and impermanent impression in Orissa—a fact which becomes clear if we consider some of the other caves on this site. In the Gaṇeśh Gumphā, for example, which is a small excavation containing only two cells, the reliefs of the frieze are closely analogous in style and subject, but, at the same time, slightly inferior to those in the upper verandah of the Rānī Gumphā. Then, in the Jayavijaya, we see the style rapidly losing its animation, and in the Alakāpurī cave, which is still later, the execution has become still more coarse and the figures as devoid of expression as anything which has survived from the Early School (Pl. XXVIII, 80). The truth appears to be that the art of Orissa, unlike the art of Central or Western India possessed little independent vitality, and flourished only so long as it was stimulated by other schools, but became retrograde the moment that that inspiration was withdrawn.