Masterpieces of Rashtrakuta Art the Kailas

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The present monograph is a revised and much enlarged version of my paper entitled "Kailas A study in Stylistic Development" which I read at the Seminar on "The Rashtrakutas held at Bangalore in 1978 There is so much in Kailas that tomes can be written but I hope the present work, though small, touches all the aspects of that great edifice.

In preparing this monograph, I have received help from several individuals. I must record my gratitude to Prof. S.B. Deo, Director, Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, Poona for affording facilities for study and to Dr. Suresh Vasant, Research Associate, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA for stimulating discussion and many useful suggestions. Dr. Suresh also did excellent photography, Photo-printing was done by Sarvashri Vatani Nagpure and Sunil Jadhav while plans and other drawings were made by Sarvashri Yeshwant Rasar and Chandrakant Padwal. To all these technicians of the Department of Archaeology, Deccan College, my thanks are due. I must also thank Sarvashri Madhav Abhyankar and Nagesh Gaware for neatly typing the manuscript. I am grateful to Dr. R.J. Mehta of M/s. D.B. Taraporevala Sons & Co. Private Ltd., Bombay, who has been evincing keen interest in my work. I also thank Sri S.M. Murkar of M/s. Taraporevala for seeing the book through the press.

Of the 1200 odd rock-cut cave-temples in India, about 800 belong to the Buddhist faith, over 200 to the Hindu, and the remaining are the shrines of the Jainas. A vast majority of these monuments, over a thousand, are located in Western India, or more precisely in the State of Maharashtra, where- as the remaining are scattered in other parts of the country (Fig. 1). The concentration of these edifices in Maharashtra is due to the availability of the basaltic trap-rock in the Sahyadri ranges which is quite suitable for carving. At some places, however, as at Pitalkhora, a soft layer of red shale has destroyed the monument. Similarly at Kanheri the rock is extra-soft and hence the caves have been considerably eroded.

The rock-cut activity began in India, not in Western India, but in the north where the earliest caves were excavated in the Barabar Hills, about 25 km north of Gaya. They were ordered to be carved by Ashoka the Great (272-32 B.C.), the greatest of the Mauryan emperors, and his grandson Dasharatha for the Ajivikas, a sect of the Jainas. The activity then shifted to Western India in the second century B.C., when the cave temples at Bhaja and Pitalkhora were excavated. The Buddhist caves can be grouped into two classes: (i) the early caves belonging to the Hinayana faith which are datable to circa 2nd century B.C.-2nd century A.D.; and (ii) the later caves belonging to the Mahayana faith datable to circa 5th-6th centuries A.D. The former are characterised by the absence of the Buddha image and the worship was symbolic; the stupa, the empty throne, the Bodhi tree, Buddha's sandals, etc., were worshipped. The latter group is distinguished by the presence of the Buddha image. The Buddhist caves are of two types. The Chaitya or the prayer- hall containing a stupa, and vihara which consisted of a quadrangular hall with rooms on all sides except on the front. The latter was used for the residence of monks. The Mahayana viharas, as at Ajanta, also have a shrine in the back wall containing a Buddha image. The most notable examples of the Hinayana caves are to be found at Bhaja, Pitalkhora, Karla, and Nasik while the finest examples of Mahayana caves are at Ajanta, Aurangabad, and Ellora.

The Hindu rock-cut activity began in the late fifth or early sixth century A.D. at Jogeshwari in Bombay and on the nearby island of Elephanta, but later shifted to Ellora where it reached its zenith in Cave XVI, the Kailas, in the 8th century A.D. The Jainas then appear on the scene and their finest rock-cut shrines are to be seen at Ellora itself in Cave Nos. XXXXXXVI which belong to the 9th century A.D. Thus, after flourishing for over a thousand years this art idiom lost its popularity in the 10th century A.D., probably because structural temples then came to be built. They obviously must have been easier and cheaper to construct. However, the rock architecture continued to be patronized till the 12th and 13th century as the recent discovery of a group of large number of caves at Panhale-Kazi in Ratnagiri district indicates. But with the advent of the Muslims in the 13th century A.D., the entire architectural activity in Maharashtra came, as it were, to a grinding halt.

The Kailas cannot strictly be classed as a cave- temple; it can better be described as a monolithic shrine. It is almost an exact copy of the Virupaksha temple at Pattadkal (Dist. Bijapur, Karnatak), but is almost twice in size. It was carved under the patronage of king Krishna 1 (A.D 757-772), the second Rashtrakuta monarch. This has been clearly stated in the Baroda copper plate grant of king Karka II of the Gujarat branch of the Rashtrakutas which is dated to Saka 734 (A.D. 812-13). It was issued from a place called Siddhashami, and was found while digging for the foundations of a house belonging to one Beni Ram at Baroda (1).