How Much Do We Know About Cave Architecture Of India
By Vimla Patil
Dr. Usha Bhatia, who has done extensive
research in the history of art and Hindu monastic establishments in the
Shivalik Hills and the Himalayas, throws
interesting light on our heritage sites!
“Cave monasteries were originally built
as habitats for monks and sanyasis,” says Dr. Usha Bhatia, who worked at
the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai, “These men and women who
had given up the life of the householder, needed solitude, peace and a
conducive environment to meditate or learn the texts of their religion
under masters. Therefore, they chose to make their dwellings far from
human settlements. In the Ashokan period, Buddhism became the state
religion of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BC. Earlier to this,
wooden dwellings were built for monks but they were not strong. During
this period, the monks moved to the Western Ghats
or Sahyadris because the rocks of these hills were found to be most
suitable for carving out cave monasteries for the monks. Even today, this
area of Maharashtra, with more than 2000 caves
of all kinds, is the world’s richest cave monument area of the world.
“The earliest caves carved by Buddhist
monks belonged to the Hinayana Buddhist path. In this style of
architecture, which prevailed from 200 BC to 200 AD, only symbols of the
Buddha were used. No personal icon was used. After this era, Mahayana
Buddhism flourished in India
and the cave temples made in this period showed the Buddha in many poses.
The idol of Buddha became a major feature of all temples of this period.
The caves at Karla – which boast the single largest cave hall with
well-formed pillars and an ornate entrance in the world – are one of the
best examples of Hinayana cave architecture. While there are figures of
human beings, celestial beings and animals on the entrance arch and the
walls and designs with animals on the rounded columns, which allow the
devotees to circumambulate the stupa, the Buddha is represented only by
the stupa. Bhaja caves, which lie on the opposite side of Karla, are in
the same category. As the number of monks increased, the caves also
increased. Some were only living quarters, with no embellishments and
most were dug by the monks themselves.
“Ajanta and
Ellora are also one of the most wonderful group of caves. While cave
numbers 9 and 10 have horseshoe shaped gates and windows for light, they
also have paintings and sculptures which are world treasures today. Caves
number 12 and 13 are viharas and chaityas. Caves 15 to 20 are the most
beautiful. Caves 21 to 26 come in the third phase of building these
shrines. The caves in Kanheri near Mumbai belong to the 10th century AD.
Some of them have only a stupa which Hindus have traditionally thought to
be a Shivling. Therefore there are lakhs of people here on Mahashivaratri
day. But they are truly worshipping a stupa. Kanheri caves are also
important for the development of the ornate pillars in Buddhist
caves. The Mahakali caves near Mumbai are Buddhist in origin. There
are also the Lonar caves near Kalyan and Bhiwandi. The Mandapeshwar and
Jogeshwari caves – 108 in number – are Hindu. Cave number 67 among these
is important. There are Udaygiri caves in the Nasik-Aurangabad area.
There are five caves in Bagh near Satna in Madhya Pradesh.
“But the finest caves in India are
to be found in Ellora and Elephanta. In Ellora, cave numbers 1 to 10 are
Buddhist, 11 to 17 are Hindu and 18 to 30 are Jain. The Kailas
temple in Ellora is counted among the modern wonders of the world because
it is literally scooped out of a single rock mountain. Ellora shows the
three religions co-existed peacefully for centuries in India. There is
absolutely nothing to prove that Hindus ever destroyed Buddhist shrines
or any other. In fact, most Hindus accept the Buddha as the ninth divine
incarnation of Lord Vishnu.
“Until 527 AD, there were no constructed temples in India. Only cave shrines housed all the deities. In that year, the first temple of stone blocks was constructed at site number 17 in Sanchi. After that all the temples of Badami, Aihole and other famous sites came up. Mortar was used in temple construction only after the 8th century.
“Until 527 AD, there were no constructed temples in India. Only cave shrines housed all the deities. In that year, the first temple of stone blocks was constructed at site number 17 in Sanchi. After that all the temples of Badami, Aihole and other famous sites came up. Mortar was used in temple construction only after the 8th century.
Around the 6th century AD, Hinduism
regained its position as the religion of the majority in India.
This was because Buddhism had grown restrictive and disallowed worship of
a variety of divine powers. Hinduism allowed much more freedom to the
individual to determine his or her own yardstick of spiritualism and
manner of rituals or worship. After the resurgence of Hinduism, great
temples were built in all parts of the South, in Khajuraho, in Gujarat and Orissa. Some of these temples are
architectural wonders because they are constructed only of stone. Their
intricate sculptures and architectural design and details are a major
subject of research and study today in many countries.”
Prof. Bhatia has obtained her MA in history of
art from the Chandigarh
University. She completed
her PhD under the guidance of Dr. B N Goswami on the subject ‘Hindu
Monastic Establishments in the Punjab Hills’. She worked as assistant
editor of the Lalit Kala Akademi publications and later became the
editor. She worked with Karl Khandalawala on various publications including
Thousand Years of Indian Painting. She also worked on the publication
Painted Visions from the Goenka collection. Presently, she works with Dr.
Saryu Doshi, Hon. Director of the National Gallery of Modern Art.
The
author was Editor of Femina for 25 years. Vimla Patil is among India's senior
most Journalists-Media persons. She excels in writing lifestyle pieces,
women's concerns, travelogues, celebrity interviews, art-culture pieces
about India.
India Is
Home To 25000 Wild Elephants - The Largest Asian Elephant Population In The
World
By Vimla Patil
Ecologists and conservationists the
world over believe that Indian forests have nurtured the largest
population of Asian elephants for a unique reason: The people of India see
the elephant as a form of Ganesha, the god of auspiciousness and wisdom!
They are reluctant to kill elephants even when they kill hundreds of people
or destroy crops in several eastern and southern states of India.
“In the conservation of wild life, it is
difficult to judge whether human beings are wrong or animals are getting
out of control,” says Meenakshi Nagendran, who represents the Asian
Elephant Conservation Fund Programme, an arm of the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, “I have worked with the Asian Elephant Conservation
Programme for some years now and have studied the reasons why wild
elephants destroy crops and kill villagers all through the eastern and
southern states of India. As their habitats – the dense tropical jungles
of Assam, Bengal, Orissa, Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala –
through which the elephant corridor passes – get denuded or destroyed and
human settlements encroach upon forest lands, elephants are deprived of
their food and water resources. They are forced to come out of the
jungles in search of food and water. Naturally, they feast upon the
harvests, which are ripening in farms that border the forest. One
elephant eats 150 kg of food and drinks 150 gallons of water every day!
That makes the requirement of 25000 elephant really awesome.
“Additionally, when elephants get used
to eating tasty paddy crops, they return to eat some more, thus
destroying the livelihood of thousands of poor farmers in India. But
we must respect their wildness and realize that they do not have the
ability to discern that they are doing wrong in stampeding into the
fields so carefully planted and nurtured by human beings. As animals,
they go only by their hunger and thirst. People, on the other hand, are
forced to encroach upon forestlands and even reserved animal sanctuaries
and parks because of the huge growth in population and the burgeoning
ambitions of people to own more and more. This is the basis of the
animal-human being conflict which results in loss to both!”
Meenakshi informs that the Asian
Elephant Conservation Fund of U.S. has, until now, disbursed $6.4 million
to various NGOs (like Aranya) and community projects groups working in
the area of conservation and to government agencies looking after
elephant populations in India. There is hope in India that if the conservation programme
works well with the support of international agencies, Asian elephants in India will multiply and make India a
wild-life-rich nation. At the present time, the entire world has just
35,000 wild Asian elephants, out of which 25,000 are in Indian forests.
Kerala, the southern state, has the maximum number of elephants in
captivity. Elephants are used in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra
for all festivals, be they Hindu or Muslim. The rich and fabulous temples
of South India nurture large numbers of
elephants because they are considered sacred and auspicious. They are
caparisoned with heavy golden ornaments and participate in temple
processions and festivals throughout the year. They are also employed in
the business of timber cutting and huge construction sites.
Krishnendu Bose, a wild life
enthusiast-film-maker, has been tracking India’s elephant population
with passion for the past two decades. Having created a large amount of
footage on elephant behavior and their conflict with human beings, Bose
has now made a film called “Elephant
– God or Destroyer”. Bose actually lived in Kerala and
Karnataka villages bordering elephant forests and filmed their attacks on
farms and human beings. He says that wild elephants have killed hundreds
of people in the last three years. His film shows how villagers in remote
forests build their own alarm systems to drive away elephant herds from
their fields. Bose shows in the film that the main threat to wild
elephants is from the destruction of forest corridors, which are vital
for elephants to move from one forest to another – from the Karbi-Anglong
forest in Assam
to the Satyamangalam forest in Kerala. This corridor – which stretches
from Assam, through Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka
to end in Kerala – is constantly depleted or destroyed by highways, dams,
railway lines, human encroachments and by timber merchants and quarry
owners in the Nilgiris, the Eastern and Western Ghats and the Himalayan
foothills.
“Elephants are listed under Schedule I
of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972,” says Bose, “But when
their forest habitats shrink, the elephant-human being conflict worsens.
What chance does a human being have in comparison to an elephant, which
weighs 4000 kgs? When elephants become insecure, they attack human beings
and are sometimes shot down. They stop mating and the species comes under
the threat of extinction. As it is, in some parts of India, there is
one female per 100 male elephants. This is dangerous for the survival of
the Asian elephant.” Bose’s film, made with help from the Public
Sector Broadcasting Trust, India,
is a graphic portrayal of the present situation in many states. Bose
further says, “The Kaziranga experiment of India’s wildlife programme has been
successful. It is found that whenever man leaves nature alone, the forces
of nature heal themselves and bring back the normal balance of forest
life. In Kaziranga, it has been found that by stopping human
interference, the number of rhinos, elephants and even tigers have
increased in numbers!”
Bose further says, “The Asian elephant
has survived in spite of all these disasters because it is considered an
incarnation or form of Ganesha. But villagers, as you can see in my film,
are beginning to question their own faith. Is the elephant an animal, a
god or a destroyer? They ask. Still, their faith emerges stronger and
they are reluctant to harm an elephant except in extreme cases. Though their
numbers are depleting, wild animals like tigers, lions, deer, elephants
etc continue to inhabit Indian forests because of the faith of millions
that each species is associated with one divine deity or the other. But
on the other hand, the destruction of animals and forests continued
unabated. This is the strange duality of the Indian cultural mindset.”
Krishnendu Bose’s film has been shown in
India through the good offices of Meenakshi Nagendran from the U.S. Asian
Elephant Conservation Fund Programme, Bittu Sahgal, editor of Sanctuary
and Hemendra Kothari, founder, Wildlife Conservation Trust of India.
Author
- Elephants are a symbol of aishwarya - opulence and prosperity - strength and
wisdom. They are the vahana of Lakshmi and are auspicious. This is why they
feature in all temples. Also, Buddha's mother Mahamaya saw a white elephant in
her dream before the birth of the Buddha and thus in Buddhist temples, the
Buddha is represented by an elephant. Similarly, Trishala, the mother of
Mahaveer Swami, the 24th Jain Tirthankar, also saw an elephant among the 14
auspicious symbols in her dream while she was pregnant. Additionally, Ganesha,
the lord of knowledge, auspiciousness and wisdom has an elephant head. Thus to
all Indic religions and cultures, the elephant is sacred and appears in all
places of worship. It is symbolic of royalty. The king of Siam or Thailand has the largest collection
of white elephants which are even more auspicious and there are films made on
his collection. A search on the net will show these films.’.
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My
humble salutations to Ms.
Vimla Patil ji and hindu samskrit dot com for the collection)
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