Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c28.21

c28.21

The other temple illustrating the early phase, the Vaital Deul, was evidently erected rather later than Parasrameswar, although it may be contemporary with the sanctuary of that example, which it has been shown may have been a subsequent addition. But the Vaital Deul is a very different conception, and derives from another an entirely different tradition. (Plate LXXXIV, Fig 1). For it is obvious that the tower of its sanctuary is not only allied more to the southern style as exemplified by the Dravidian gopurams, but like those structures, its original ancestor was the chaitya-hall of the Buddhists. In spite, however, of its elongated vaulted roof in two stories, with its ridge finials and chaitya-arch gable ends, all expressive of the Buddhist type, there is every evidence in the distinctive quality of its architectural treatment that fundamentally it is of Indo-Aryan extraction. In its own manner the *jagamohan*, or hall in front of this sanctuary is also of uncommon design. This is a rectangular structure, but embedded in each angle is a small supplementary shrine, a replica in miniature of an Indo-Aryan vimana, so that it is, in effect, an example of a *panchayatana* or five-shrined type of temple, but in a nascent stage of its evolution.