Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/35

 CHAP. II. ORISSA CAVES. 15 present purposes is that the first named is singularly classical in design and execution, the latter wilder, and both in action and costume far more purely Indian. Before the discovery of the Bharaut sculptures, it is hardly doubtful that we would have pronounced those in the Gane^a cave the oldest, as being the most perfect. The Bharaut sculptures, however, having shown us how perfect the native art was at a very early date, have considerably modified our opinions on this subject ; and those in the Rant cave, being so essentially Indian in their style, now appear to me the oldest. Those in the Gane^a- gumpha, as more classical, may have been executed at a subsequent date, but still both long anterior to the Christian Era. The other bas-reliefs in the Raj-Rani cave represent scenes of hunting, fighting, dancing, drinking, and love-making anything, in fact, but religion or praying in any shape or form. From the sculptures at Sanchi and Bharaut, we were prepared to expect that we should not find any direct evidence of Mahayana Buddhism in sculptures anterior to the Christian Era ; but those at this place are not Buddhist but Jaina, and till we are better acquainted with the Jaina legends than we are at present, we cannot hope to determine what such sculptures really represent. Besides these bassi-rilievi, there is in the Rant cave a figure, in high relief, of a female (?) riding on a lion. Behind him or her, a soldier in a kilt, or rather the dress of a Roman soldier, with laced boots reaching to the calf of the leg (Woodcut No. 264) very similar, in fact, to those represented on plate 28, fig. I, of 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' as strangers paying their addresses to a three.-storeyed stupa and behind this, again, a female of foreign aspect. In another cave of the same group the Jayavijaya, called by Kittoe the Jodev-Garbha and of about the same age, between the two doorways leading to the cells, a sacred tree is being worshipped by two men and two women with offerings. It is surrounded by the usual rail, and devotees and others are bringing offerings. 1 The verandah has a male figure outside at the left end, and a female at the right. In yet another cave, in the Khandagiri hill, similar in plan to the Gane.ra cave, and probably older than either of the two last-mentioned, called Ananta-garbha, are bassi-rilievi over the doorways : one on the right is devoted, like the last, to Tree worship, the other to the honour of Sn (vide ante, vol. i. p. 50). She is standing on her lotus, and two elephants, standing likewise on lotuses, are pouring water over her. 2 The same representation occurs once, at least, at Bharaut, and ten times at Sanchi, and, 1 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of I 2 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' plate Bengal,' vol. vii. plate 42. | 100, p. 105; ' Cave^Temples,' plate i,