The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

222 THE GOLDEN AGE AND END OF BUDDHIST ART
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58. Aihole, Haccappya's temple, Vishnu on Naga
The sculpture of the temples at Aihole
includes some of the finest reliefs in all Indian
art. The panel with Vishnu on Naga from
Haccappya's temple [158], although perhaps as
late as the eighth century, resembles the carving
at Deogarh [162] in the abstract purity of
159. Aihole, Ladh Khan temple
modelling and the organization of the relief.
These small narrative slabs are adaptations for
structural architecture of the epic themes that
fill the great cave temples of the Deccan [246].
The figures have the same sense of emergence
from the limitless background; their faces
reveal a rapt, entranced expression of absorption
in their own being; and the forms move in
easy curvilinear rhythms, their contours intermingling
with the fluidity of waves or flames.
Still another type of architecture is represented
by the Ladh Khan temple at the same
site dating from c. 450 [159]. This is a rectangular
building with a flat roof of stone slabs.
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