In the first one, appearing early in the text, the fame of the resident guru, a Shaiva sage named Prabodhashiva who was also the monastery’s maker, 1 is described as having been praised: 2 It would have resonated well with metaphors of heavenly song and falling water found in three verses of an inscription still affixed to the monastery’s entrance. The music made by the falling rain may have been fundamental to the figures’ meaning. During the monsoon season, water would once have streamed through a channel carved along their backs and out through their mouths, creating an effervescent display not only spectacular as a vision but also melodious as a sound. Situated above the corrugated stone eave (chadya) surrounding the monastery’s first story, they were designed as drain-spouts to facilitate the flow of rainwater into the recessed court below. As elements in an architectural context, they performed a crucial function within the larger building. Their bodies sloped downward and then swelled outward and upward in an elegant arc, as their bent legs and arms reinforced the potential for forward movement. ![]() ![]() As individual figures, Chandrehe’s celestials were richly adorned with jeweled necklaces, flowing scarves, sacred threads, elaborate armlets, and beaded belts. Hovering above the central courtyard of a Hindu monastery at the rural central-Indian village of Chandrehe was once a set of finely sculpted flying celestials, known within their original, tenth-century context as gandharvas, heavenly singers in the court of the gods, or vidya-dharas, meaning “carriers of truth.” Skillfully carved, they were endowed by their maker with both a fluidity of movement and an exquisite lightness that belied the massive materiality of the medium of stone.
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