Page:The Rock-cut Temples of India.djvu/319



HIS photograph fairly represents the mode in which the walls of the Kylas are covered with ornament. Both in its design and execution it is inferior to Northern sculpture of the same age, and the architectural members have none of that elegance of detail which is found at Ajunta, but the effect of the whole is certainly rich and picturesque.

The group on the right represents Vishnu on his Vahana, or celestial bearer, Garuda,—the man-bird, an emblem borrowed probably from the Assyrian Pantheon, where a man with the wings of a bird is a very common combination, though only known in this one instance in Indian mythology.

The central group represents Vishnu and his consort, Sareswati, while the figure on the left seems merely to be an attendant. 76