Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c9.44

c9.44

KŪṬĀGĀRA—The term Kūṭāgāra, Kūṭāgāraśāla, denoted a building with a peaked top, usually a roofed pavilion with a gabled end and vaulted roof with small stūpas over it. Thus we read about the roof-ridge (Prāsāda-kūṭa) of a palace with sixty water-pot finials (Udakaghaṭa), and a Vimāna with many Kūṭāgāras (J. VI. 120), also Majjhima N I. 253 speaking of seven hundred Kūṭāgāras on each Niyyūha or projecting ledge of a Prāsāda. Sometimes each storey of the palace consisted of a number of such rooms A Kūṭāgāra was thus a chamber shade also called Gabbha, Śālā, Guhā, often it was provided with a latticed window or screen (Sihapañjara), and a ventilator (Vātapāna). The Kūṭāgāra room could be closed from inside by drawing across the doorleaves a transverse bar (phusitaggala, Hindi argalā), and also from outside by locking (Yantaka). The Kūṭāgāra on the top floor was Hammiya (Skt. Harmya; cf. Harmikā on the top of the Stūpa).