Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 Allowed Meditators, Nicknames and Stayovers

Summary: Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 acted as a combination monastery and prayer hall and as one of three monikered Buddhist Ellora Caves in Maharashtra, India.

Compartments of the narrow triforium over the nave's pillars in Ellora Buddhist Cave 9 feature a seated Buddha with attendants above a band of gaņa (dwarves); "Part of the Triforium" sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XVII: via Internet Archive

Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 in Maharashtra state, western peninsular India, attests to ancient multi-tasking arrangements for cavern adorational architecture and art as a Buddhist combination monikered cavern temple mon astery and prayer hall.

Ellora Buddhist Cave 10, built during the Kalachuri (from Sanskrit कलचुरि) dynasty (550?-before 687 C.E.?), became the only Buddhist Ellora cavern temple monastery and prayer hall. It carries the ancient moniker Visvakarma (from Sanskrit विश्वकर्मन्, "maker of all, omnificent") and the local nickname Sutar ka Jhopra (from Marathi for "the carpenter's hut"). Temple designs and details divulge a cavern monastery with dormitories off a corridor and a cavern prayer hall with aisles and shrines off a meeting room.

Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 exhibits the expected relic container and sacred sculpture in the rear end of the prayer hall, where one aisle encounters the other.

Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 functions as a chaitya-griha (devotional, enshrined abode, from Sanskrit चैत्य, "piled-up" and गृह, "residence") with dormitories, not a chaitya without dormitory cells.

A side opening got vihara (from Sanskrit विहार, "walking [hall]") monastery cave 9 guests into meditation groups with Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 guests from eight dormitories. Beam-like, ribbed, semi-domed, wood-looking apse (from Greek ἀψίς, "arch") and vaulted prayer-hall ceilings hint of itinerant artisans headed into stonemasonry from carpentered, wood-worked architecture and art. They inspire the identification Visvakarma, architecture instructor to humankind; and creator of divine heavens, divine palaces and, from son-in-law sun god Surya's shaved-off brilliance, divine weapons.

The rear end of Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 juxtaposes a stone sculpture, a stupa (from Sanskrit स्तूप, "dome") shrine and a wall carving.

The funeral pyre for Siddhartha Gautama (from Sanskrit सिद्धार्थ, "successful" and गौतम, "darkness-dispelling light"), as enlightened Gautama Buddha (from Sanskrit बुद्ध, "awakened"), kindled heaped-up, pearl-like ashes.

Stupa shrines lodge Buddhist relics and laud eight princes locating one pearly heap each from Siddhartha Gautama's (624?-544 B.C.E.?) enlightened ashes in each kingdom's stupa. Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 maintains a stone-sculpted Buddha in vyakhyana (from Sanskrit व्याख्यान, "narration") teaching posture near a wall-carved bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa) of his enlightenment. It nurtures sitting, standing and walking meditations in its prayer hall and, on wallward sides of 28 octagonal columns with plain bracket capitals, its side aisles.

Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 offers carved friezes atop octagonal columns and ornaments corridor columns with foliage-sculpted, vase-sculpted ghatapallava (from Sanskrit घट, "water-jar" and पल्लव, "sprout") capitals.

Ellora Buddhist Cave 10, like Ellora Jain and other Ellora Buddhist Caves, presents Hindu mythology, such as apsara (from Sanskrit अप्सरा, "fairy") nymphs and naga snakes.

The entryway facade and the interior relief queue up apsara nymphs respectively carved with meditation-minded monks and raise-figured with Gandharva (from Sanskrit गंधर्व, "song") skilled musicians. Half-bird, half-man Gandharva musicians reside in storm god Indra's (from Sanskrit इन्द्र, "raindrop-possessing") heaven, Swarga (from Sanskrit स्वर्ग, "paradise"), on Mount Meru (from Sanskrit मेरु, "central"). Their father, the sage Kasyapa (from Sanskrit कश्यप, "black-toothed"), sired half-man, serpent-tailed naga snakes, whose females sometimes show the physical beauty of dancing singing apsara nymphs.

Itinerant artisans turned the fourth-last through last Buddhist caverns into chaitya-griha prayer hall and monastery Ellora Buddhist Cave 10 and into monasteries 9, 11 and 12.

view of façade of Ellora Buddhist Cave 10, known as Visvakarma Cave; photo taken ca. 1874 by J. Johnston: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Compartments of the narrow triforium over the nave's pillars in Ellora Buddhist Cave 9 feature a seated Buddha with attendants above a band of gaņa (dwarves); "Part of the Triforium" sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XVII: via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.1544/page/n134/mode/1up

view of façade of Ellora Buddhist Cave 10, known as Visvakarma Cave; photo taken ca. 1874 by J. Johnston: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:*-General_view_of_fa%C3%A7ade_of_Buddhist_Chaitya_Hall,_Vishkakarma_Cave_(Cave_X),_Ellora.-,_a_photo_by_J._Johnston,_c.1874*_(BL).jpg

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