Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.126

c2.126

Temple No. 6 faces the east and is similar on plan to No. 5. The shrine cell is about 5 feet square and contains a linga of the usual kind. On each side of the entrance is a large figure of a doorkeeper leaning on a club, the one on the north side wearing the horned headdress already referred to. The porch is 12½ feet in length and 3½ feet in width; so, as there is plenty of room for additional figures, we find a four-armed bas-relief image of Brahma on the south and Vishnu on the north side of the entrance. The figure of Brahma is smaller than the one of Vishnu and the base of the former is higher than that of the latter, giving the figures an unsymmetrical appearance as though they were an after-thought, and introduced after the original design had been executed. The cornice of the facade is damaged and unfinished and is without the gable ornament but below it is a frieze of little dwarfs. Two square pillars with bracket capitals decorated with conventional lions support the architrave spanning the facade. In front is a small open rock-cut terrace and the usual panels containing little figures of Gaṇēśa and Siva, respectively, and engraved on the north wall of the terrace above the little figure of Siva is an inscription the meaning of which is unintelligible. Cut on the outer portion of the rock separating this temple from No. 7, is a niche apparently a memorial shrine, containing a little rock-cut linga similar to those already mentioned. [Plate XIX (b)].