Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/75

 likely, being suggested by the surrounding sculptures, was that the scene represented Śrī Krishña being secretly and hurriedly carried away beyond the destructive reach of King Kańsa. It will also be remembered that the vessel herein represented is that of the Madhyamandirā type as defined in the Yuktikalpataru.

In Bhubaneshwara there is an old temple on the west side of the tank of Vindusarovara which requires to be noticed in this connection. The temple is called Vaitāl Deul after the peculiar form of its roof resembling a ship or boat capsized, the word vaitāra denoting a ship. The roof is more in the style of some of the Dravidian temples of Southern India, notably the raths of Mahavellipore, than of Orissan architecture.

There are a few very fine representations of old Indian ships and boats among the far-famed paintings of the Buddhist cave-temples at Ajantā, whither the devotees of Buddhism, nineteen centuries or more ago, retreated from the distracting cares of the world to give themselves up to contemplation. There for centuries the wild ravine and the basaltic rocks were the scene of an application of labour, skill, perseverance, and endurance that went to the excavation of these painted palaces, standing to this day as monuments of a boldness of conception and a defiance of difficulty as possible, we believe, to the modern as to the ancient Indian