Nara-Narayan Panel : One of their rarest depictions to be found in any ancient or medieval Hindu temple, the niche on east side artistically well depicts the Nara and Narayana wearing deer skin and seated in deep meditation near the Badri tree at Badrikashrama (Badrinath) in their Himalayan abode. The importance of Nar and Narayan is well brought out in the Bhagavat Purana, which mentions them as incarnation of Vishnu, and in the Mahabharat, where they believed to be personified as Krishna and Arjuna are so highly revered that every parva (chapter) starts with an invocation to them in addition to containing other stories of their spiritual strength and prominence. The epic also describes the Badrikashrama with the famous ‘Badri’ tree in the Himalayan forest full of Deers and lions, as their ancient abode for meditation, which was also visited by the Pandavas during exile, which the sculptor has tried to depict in a lively manner. 

The sculptor has succeeded in depicting the peace and serenity of meditation as the panel here depicts four-handed Narayana seated in Lalitasana posture and carrying akshamala (rosary), a lotus stalk, and probably a flower stalk in one of the upper hand while Nara is shown seated with one of his hands carrying akshamala and another in a posture similar to bhumi-sparsha  mudra as seen in Buddha images. Near the top of these trees are flying couples at the ends and a female figure identified as Urvashi who is supposed to have emerged from the thighs of Narayana, in between the trees. Two ascetics are shown standing behind the figures of Nara and Narayana in the panel of which the uppermost part depicts Brahma, seated on a lotus, in the center and accompanied by two flying figures of couples, one on either side. Cunningham had earlier confused the four-armed figure of Narayan as Shiva and thus could not identify any image other than Brahma, the correct identification of which later was based upon the iconographic descriptions given in Vishnudharmottara Sutra.

To be continued....