other side by the falling disc partly covered by Vishnu's shield and by the image of Siva, whom Vishnu is touching with one finger and one toe, an allusion to the three strides in which the sun is said to complete his daily round. On the right of Vishnu's head is his Boar incarnation, Vāraha, the form which he is said to have taken when he raised the earth from the depths of the ocean, whither she had been carried by a demon, Hiranyaksha. The four figures grouped at his feet are the guardians of the four quarters. The panel in Pl. LX, a, shows Nārāyanain his cosmic slumber, the coils of Ananta forming his couch. The figures on the right refer to a solar myth regarding a demon who, evading the doorkeeper of Vaikuntha, Vishnu's palace, attempted to steal the sleeping god's mace. It will be noticed that Vishnu as the night sun only possesses the normal number of arms: the multiple arms of Vishnu-Sūrya are probably intended to suggest the rays of the midday sun.
The wonderfully fine relief given in Pl. LXI is an unusual representation of Nārāyana as King of the Nāgas in the snake world of the cosmic ocean, seated in the pose of "royal ease" on the coils of Ananta, but with four arms bearing only the Chakra and war trumpet. Two graceful Nāginis, the snake-goddesses whose magic powers and seductive charms play a great part in Indian folk-lore, together with two male genii, flit lightly as butterflies round the deity bringing their offerings. The playful rhythm of their sinuous serpentine bodies, drawn by a most accomplished hand, fill the whole sculpture with the sense of supreme delight which is said to belong to Vishnu's paradise. It is carved on the ceiling of an old temple at Aihole, dated about the seventh or eighth century a.d., near Bādāmi, the ancient capital of
