India far excels the rest of the world in rock-cut architecture, of which the handpicked memorials were built during the two and a half centuries, from c. 55 to 800. The prime caves are located at Elephanta, Jogesvari, Mandapesvar and Kanheri, in the surrounds of Mumbai, in Aurangabad and nearby Ellora in Maharashtra (ancient Vidarbha), and in Badami and Aihole in Karnataka. The earliest are direct descendants of the Vataka Caves in Ajanta, and it is definitely exceedingly likely that generations of stone-cutters and sculptors travelled from one site to another in Konkan, western Maharashtra, and other parts of western Deccan, determined possibly by the consecutive waves of subjugations by the Kalachuris, the early western Chalukyas, and finally the Rashtrakutas, who went on to suppress the whole region. The Hindu and even Jain caves and temples brought out innovative and rather dissimilar ground plans and detailed sculptural creations, exemplifying myths from the Puranas influencing the later Buddhist caves and giving rise to a more affluent and more luxuriant iconography. Novel sculptures, primarily of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, were established in many of the earlier caves, especially at Karle, Nasik and Kanheri. Of the monolithic replications of structural temples, cut out of solid rock at the closing stages of the period, the enormous Kailasanatha at Ellora is the utmost triumph.
Work is believed to have begun around the present city of Mumbai in the mid 6th century, under the benefaction of the Kalachuris and probably of their precursors, the Traikutakas. The colossal Shiva cave in Elephanta (Gharapuri), an island in Mumbai harbour, possesses an intricate plan, making the most of a vigilantly chosen arrangement of rock and simultaneously deceiving the influence of present-day structural shrines. It is basically a rectangular-shaped temple, facing east. The garbhagriha is sarvatobhadrika, each of the four entryways warded by massive dvarapalas and their attendees. On the sides, as an alternative to walls, there are rows of pillars opening up towards antechambers, the northern one leading to another entryway (there is a third one behind the garbhagriha), the southern towards the sculptured rock-face, with, in the centre, the other focal point of the temple, the outstanding Mahadeva image.
The pillars are comparatively plain, square to mid-height, thereafter round and fluted, including the cushion capitals. The entryways are unornamented; indeed the whole cave is lacking ornamentation, intensifying the effect of massive magnitude and of the great sculptured panels, describing the god in numerous forms and activities, noticeably a Nataraja, an Ardhnarlsvara, a marriage of Shiva and Parvati, and a seated Lakusa.
Devastatingly smashed though they are, the images mix the enrapt and self-involved inwardness which has become the primary dimension of the godhead, with a colossal prevailing dynamism, and in this manner, rather than by the presence of the attendee figures, communicate the indispensable oneness of the human with the divine, which is the keenest theme of Indian art. Greek gods are basically men and women, although romanticised; these statuettes are phenomenal- true immortals, the connection with the human world accomplished by plastic form in a way never possibly rivalled.
The immense Mahadeva image reaches a height of 17ft. 10in. (5.45m.) above the base, itself, approximately 3ft. in height. It is more of a mukhalinga rather than a total figure of Shiva. Its iconographic identification is Sadasiva or Mahesa (the great lord). The right hand of the god is broken; he carries a matulunga (citron) in his left. The face on the proper right, with the serpent, is Aghora-Bhairava, a dreadful or furious manifestation, and that on the left Vamadeva or Uma, Shiva`s shakti, with a lotus. Due to its startling placement in relation to the diverse external entryways, the image gets precisely the amount of light essential to make it look as if it is issuing from a black emptiness, `manifestation from the unmanifest`, an effect intensified by the expression of the central face, sunk deep in consideration and yet immeasurably olympian.
Some loose sculpture, generally fragmental, believed to have come from Elephanta, is intimately linked to the dominating style in northern Gujarat, in 6th and 7th centuries. However, the great bas-relief at Parel of Shiva, manifolding himself, shares both the style and the character of metaphysical perception of the great image at Elephanta. The most significant of all the rock-cut sites of the second phase is Ellora near Aurangabad, now in Maharashtra. Here, in the western face of a protrusion of the Sahyadri Hills, some 35 caves and rock-cut temples, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain, stretch for three-quarters of a mile. One of the earliest, presumably of the mid-6th century, is the Hindu Ramesvara (Cave 21) with a well-adjusted plan, the enhancement of an inner sanctum with a circumferring passage, and a Nandi on a high platform, facing the access wall, all just as in a structural temple. On the parapet wall between the exterior pillars of the hall are exquisite relief friezes of elephants and mithuna couples, and there are brackets in the shape of salabhaiijikas. Inside, antechambers with two-column porches open on both sides, their walls sculptured, like in Elephanta, with images of the gods and vistas from Pauranic legends. Relief figurines on both sides of the entryways to the sanctum include a Durga vanquishing the demon buffalo and- possibly the best- a dancing Shiva, both knees bent (kfipta) and body facing the onlooker in a way distinctive of Indian dance throughout ages. Less valiant in size and posture than the Nataraja in Elephanta, but far healthily preserved, the god is intuition with an over the top rhythm, emphasised by the fall of his jata (crown of matted locks) in disorder on to his right shoulder. The musicians flocking, nearly herding around, of an extraordinary exquisiteness and individualism and on a corresponding scale, gives a feel almost of the genre to the scene. The Seven Mothers seated in a row in the same antechamber have an equivalent appeal of aspect and identity of posture. Outside, engraved into the rock face at every end of the veranda, are the river-goddesses, in a more conservative post-Gupta style.
Permitting the dissimilar arrangement of the cliff, the so-called Dhumar Lena (Cave 29) nearly replicates the Elephanta Cave in design, iconography and ample scale, and was plausibly stimulated by it. There is even a similar seated Lakulisa image dacing a Nataraja. Though the sculpture is of inestimably substandard quality, much of it incomplete, the resemblance to Elephanta demands a connection between the early Hindu caves at Ellora and the Kalachuris, who must have been past their heyday by the end of 6th century, when they endured a crush at the hands of the early western Chalukya sovereign, at whose capital in northern Karnataka- Badami- Cave 3, dated by inscription to 578 A.D., shares with the Ramesvara at Ellora, the prominent attribute of human couples as brackets. The Hindu caves in Ellora, elite to the Rashtrakuta ones, thus surely belongs to the second half of 6th century.
The Hindu Caves, chiselled out of red sandstone, cliffs of Badami are all Vaishnava, with one Jain exception, and of humble size. The most detailed, Cave III, possesses a simpler plan compared to Ramesvara in Ellora, without antechambers, and the sanctum is but a miniature square cell, excavated out of the back wall. The sculptures include Vishnu as a boar (Varaha), as a lion (Narasimha), and repeated in each of the Hindu caves, as Trivikrama in the Vamana (dwarf) embodiment. The statuettes tend to be self-assertive, nearly savage, generally standing stiffly in samapada, with expanded legs and over-sized hands. The gods` jewellery, on the other hand, is furnished with immense daintiness. The compositions are deficient in atmospheric appeal like the panels in the Kalachuri caves, though some of the attendee figurines are often excellent grotesques in the purest Gupta style. Quality however, always is variable. The seated Vishnu at one end of the hall is a mighty menacing presence, the Narasimha at the other end an engrossing statuette. Though humble and elementary in design, the Badami caves emote an feeling of lavishness because of the delicate carving of minor figurines and ornamental motifs, especially on the ceilings.
The two Aihole caves, Hindu and Jain, are also brilliantly embellished from inside. The Ravanaphadi sports a more evolved design, with a much bigger sanctum, resonant of the Ramesvara at Ellora. It too is `Saiva` (adjective of Shiva), with an excellent dancing Shiva flanked by dancing Matrakas in one of the antechambers (the other unfinished) and, on both sides of the passageway into the sanctum, Durga Mahisasuramardini and a Varaha. The sculptures are vastly individualistic, quite discrete from those of Ellora as well as the Badami caves. Farther from the Gupta idiom, the figurines are gifted with a gentle refinement, the legs are trim and delicately done, the crowns exceedingly soaring, and clothing is fanatically indicated by means of profoundly parallel panels. Outside the entryway, all but obscured, is a pair of doormen in `Scythian` attire, an astoundingly late survival of a custom of foreign guards, first referred to by Megasthenes.
Undeniably later, though hard to date, is the Rava-ka-Khai (no.14) at Ellora, placed as it is between the most sophisticated of the Buddhist caves (no.12) and the Dasavatara (no.15), unquestionably Rashtrakuta in style. The Rava-ka-Khai has an exceptionally rational, thoroughly hinduised plan, with ample space for circumferring and a colonnaded hall, anteceding the sanctum. On each sidewall, differentiated by ornate pilasters, are five panels- Saiva on the left, Vaishnava on the right. The rectangular garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum) suggests that this cave was definitely dedicated to a female divinity or divinities.
Approximately contemporary with the Hindu caves in Ellora are the second-phase Mahayana caves in Aurangabad. One group (1 & 3), looks to continue the finest Ajanta works; Cave 3 especially, corresponds more or less closely in design, and the carving of some of the pillars indeed excels anything in Ajanta. The second group (caves 2,5,6,7,8, and 9) merges Hindu-type sanctums in the centre of what used to be the hall (own with a porticoed entryway) with cells cut into the side and back walls and (Cave 7) a columned veranda of Buddhist kind. The hardness and deficiency of novelty and ingenuity in the carving of the pillars and pilasters cheat on the later date. On the other hand, nowhere is the litany of Avalokiteshwara more resplendently exemplified, and the goddesses, without question Tara with an attendee, standing on each side of the sanctum door are among the finest 6th century and 7th century cave sculptures in Maharashtra. The dancing woman with flanking female musicians on one wall of the inner sanctum in unequalled in the whole corpus of Indian sculpture. Most of the Buddhas in these caves are seated in European mode.
The Buddhist caves in Ellora were in all probability not begun until work on the earlier Hindu shrine had terminated. They belong to the later Mahayana (Great Vehicle) phase. Though Caves 2 and 3, for instance, correspond to the more intricate of the Ajanta caves more than a century earlier, not only did the plans soon become far more perplexed, but a whole new iconography had emerged, born of unfathomed changes in philosophy, liturgy and common viewpoint. The stupa all but disappeared. The stock of icon-types at Ajanta was minutely bigger than in Kushana times, but now several new Bodhisattvas appear- as well- for the first time- as female goddesses or Bodhisattvas for example Tara, together with four-armed images, definitely borrowed from Hinduism and so-called speeches of Avalokiteshwara, with the great Bodhisattva depicted as Lord of Travellers flanked by scenes of wayfarers in suffering. A present day text portrays to what degree the enormous Bodhisattvas were invoked and worshipped.
The purpose of these rock-cut halls is already under alteration. Cave 2 could not have been a vihara, because there are barely any cells. Expansions on the evolved Ajanta design are introduced, like the colonnaded gallery on both sides of the hall, behind which are rows of Buddhas seated in pralambapada. Buddhas and worshippers now also line the walls of the sanctum itself. Capitals differ from the vase and foliation kind (Cave 3) to chamfered cushions. The sculpture, lacking the earlier profusion of detail, consists of conventionalised interwoven forms, prone to exaggeration, as in the case of gigantic beasts. The faces incline to be over-simplified.
Some caves are bigger and more elaborate compared to any Buddhist excavation so far attempted. Cave 5 portrays a wholly fresh type, in that it expands into the rock to a much superior length than its width and yet is not a chaitya hall. It is rectangular, with two rows of ten pillars in the centre and between them two rows of incessant elevated stone benches. It is however not known what function these use to serve. It has been recommended that they were used as dining hall benches or tables (there are also 17 cells and a shrine), but it is more probable that the monks sat there in assembly or for teaching, as must have been the function of the seats around the tiled patio at Harwan. There is a similar inexplicable characteristic in one of the caves at Bagh.
Enormous standing Bodhisattvas, with attendee figurines, stand as dvarapalas on both sides of the sanctuary of quite a few of the caves, an aspect evidently borrowed from the Hindu cave. In Cave 6 these are principally delicate, with their increasing vivacity, wonderfully created muktas, and attendees in distinctive Gupta postures. The individuality of some of the Bodhisattvas is baffling. Those with a tiny Buddha in their on are surely acknowledged as Avalokiteshwara and recurrently have a deer-skin (ajina) over their shoulders. Those with a stupa in their headgear are generally thought to represent Maitreya, but the attendee figurine of the Maitreya in Cave 6 wears a vajra in his headgear. On the right wall of the vestibule is Mahamayiri, and opposite her, Tara, also seated, with a stupa in her jalamukha and donning an ajina. Cave 8 is remarkably alike in design to a Hindu shrine, and contains what is presumably the earliest multi-armed Buddhist statuette, the Avalokiteshwara beside the seated Buddha in the sanctum.
Cave 10, the so-called Visvakarma, is the only chaitya hall in Ellora and the last of this category of cave to be excavated. The chaitya hall had been made archaic by three progresses- the supplanting of the stupa as the chief cult entity, the enshrinement of Buddha images in the viharas, and possibly, as it is noticed, their use as places of assembly or `combination` halls, similar to Cave 5. What is more, the immense three-storeyed caves like the Tin That, with their colossal halls, now catering to the monks` requirements for splendour as well as or better than chaitya halls. The Vishwakarma portrays the metamorphosis roughly beyond identification of a type of rock-cut building, going back to 2nd century H.C. It is apsidal-ended. The row of interior columns and the high-carved clerestory diverge slightly from those of Caves 19 and 26 at Ajalga, but the stupa is all but obliterated by the enormous figure of a seated Buddha. Entryway is now by a doorway in a screen wall into a courtyard with two-storey verandas on both sides, with cells behind them. Most outstanding is what has come about of the façade itself, the most prominent and distinctive aspect of a chaitya hall. A colonnaded entryway porch defends an extensive terrace behind which rises a poised composition of a chaitya window, flanked by two huge recesses, surmounted by udgamas of already complex form, with split and overlying gavakas. The shapes of these features recommend a date, approximately 650 A.D., the udgama (pediment) emerging as one of the prominent features of post-Gupta architecture. The window still serves the function of the novel chaitya archway, to let in light to the interior, but its shapes have become wholly ornamented, assuming no relation to the barrel-vault inside. Inside, equivalent to the terrace is a gallery in the arrangement of a European minstrels` gallery. The intention, however, is not known.
Caves II, 12 and 15 are all multi-storeyed, the first two, three-floored and Buddhist, the last, with only a ground floor and the first storey, Hindu. Cave II, nevertheless, houses two or three images, and Cave 15 possesses some cells, representing that it had been designed to be Buddhist, though the nrtya mandapa (dance pavilion) in the courtyard is tricky to harmonise with this. Caves I and 12, because of their highly improved iconography and aspects of their sculptural works, are surely the last Buddhist caves in Ellora.
Similar to Cave 10, Cave Do Thal has a huge open courtyard in front. Its images comprise, for the first time, such statuettes like Sthiraketu, with a sword, and Nanaketu, holding a flag and Manjushri, carrying a lotus, on which rests a book, hereafter his most characteristic iconographic attribute. Architecturally, it is a less ornamented and less ruthless edition of the great Tin Thal (Cave 12). Here, like the Vishwakarma, the outsized forecourt is entered by doors in a screen wall. The frontage is entirely plain, like in the Do Thal, emitting no suggestion of the brilliance within or the size of the three immense superimposed halls. On the ground floor is a six column antechamber in front of the chief shrine, which has the now-normal display of guardians on the side and back walls; however, all are seated in padmasana, even the Bodhisattavs Manjushri and Maitreya, acting as doormen, one on both sides of the entryway. Above the four Bodhisattvas on each side-wall of the shrine are five Dhyani Buddhas. Tara and Cunda face the Buddha inside. The goddesses wear kucabandhas (breast bands), and some of the figurines have kirttimukha (lion-mask) armlets with late features, as are the shapes of certain mukutas. There is also a pair of doormen with their arms crossed and leaning on clubs, in the southern style.
The first storey is exceptional in possessing cells on all four sides of the colonnaded hall. This is accomplished by placing the side entranceways from the veranda at the utmost ends of the frontage, which, given the extraordinary size of the hall, permits three inward-facing cells on both sides of the central entryway. The second storey is an enormous oblique hall with five rows of eight columns and Buddha`s on the sidewalls at the end of each slanting aisle. In the centre of the back wall, an antechamber with two columns leads to the shrine. On both sides of the antechamber, satisfying each wall space, are seven seated Buddhas- on the left, the Manusi Buddhas, each acknowledged by the singular bodhi tree under which he had gained Enlightenment, on the right, seven Dhyani Buddhas, their hands in dharmachakra mudra and seated under sunshades. On each side of the antechamber and alongside the shrine door, comes six seated goddesses of which, some have been provisionally distinguished. They include- Vajradhatvisvari, Khadiravarti, Cunda, Janguli, Tara, Mahamayiiri, Bhrkuti, and Pandara. Inside the sidewalls of the shrine are eight standing Bodhisattvas, carrying chowries in one hand. By the symbols in there other hands, Maitreya ( water pot), Sthiracakra (sword), Maiijusri (book on lotus), and Jnanaketu (banner) can be distinguished. Thus all the walls of the upper level, including the inside of the shrine, are lined with statuettes. Repeated numerous times inside the cave is a square, divided into nine compartments, eight with Bodhisattvas, a Buddha in the centre- possibly the earliest surviving mandalas.
Cave 15 (the Dasavatara) is undeniably late in its built. With its upper storey, it tallies with Buddhist caves, like Nos. 12 and 13 (some cells recommend that it was begun as a Buddhist cave). A very deep court is also a late attribute. What is more, the huge, monolithic, but quite a divided mandapa in the court has exterior recesses, topped with an udgama, ornamented with a mesh or honeycomb of gavasaks, a distinguishing feature of post-Gupta free-standing temple architecture. It is dubious whether this aspect used to happen anywhere before the middle or late 7th century. The Dasavatara is the only monument in Ellora with a former inscription of any historical grandness. It registers that either the Rashtrukuta Dantidurga (c. 730-55) or a contemporary mogul had visited the temple, plausibly towards the end of Dantidurga`s reign, when it appears to have been in the completions- indeed, it may have been so for some years or even decades. What is certain is that a fresh liveliness invigorates the sculpture.
The old Kalachuri compositions, huge and thronged with figurines, have been substituted by new, commonly simpler and more vibrant ones, often indistinguishable to some in the adjacent Kailasa (Temple 16), an unchallenged Rashtrakuta foundation. Arm bands are no longer spirals, as in Kalachuri sculpture, or of pearls, as worn by many Gupta and post-Gupta figurines, but kirttimukhas, an 8th century innovation from further south. Statuettes shoot supplementary arms, and their postures are more vivacious, when not simply theatrical in an unsuccessful endeavour to repair for the limitation in composition. Typical is the Narasimha with, standing beside him, a Hirarnyakasipu of equivalent size, his head thrown back and sidewise in a malformed Rashtrakuta posture.
The great Kailasa Temple (No. 16) in Ellora, together with three other, much lesser shrines, is of an altogether dissimilar type- a monolithic reproduction of a structural temple. These, however, represent the northernmost instances of the unfeigned Dravida style, and their sculpture manifests that of areas further south in the Deccan, instead of Maharashtra and Konkan. There are rock-cut reproductions of northern-type temples at Dhammar in Madhya Pradesh and in Masrur in Kangra.
