Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c30.17

c30.17

With this post-Gupta development in Rajputana may also be classed one example of the Indo-Aryan style in this region, which on account of its technique is rare, as it is rock-cut This is a Brahmanical temple at Damnar, a site fifty miles south-west of Jhalra Patan and evidently contemporary with an extensive series of Buddhist excavations in its proximity, which may date from the eighth or ninth centuries. Standing a little apart from the Buddhist group, this temple has several noteworthy features. It is approached by a passage cut in the rock some 282 feet in length, at the end of which a rectangular pit has been excavated leaving a mass of rock in the centre out of which the temple has been formed. Its plan is not however a simple one, as in addition to the central shrine it is surrounded by as many as seven entirely separate but smaller shrines all symmetrically grouped so as to form the whole into one unified but somewhat complex composition. Differing from the *panchayatana* or five shrined temples, which in one form or another are not uncommon, there are several examples of this combination of eight shrines, such as the temple of Kotheswara (cır. ninth century) at Pathari, and the Udayaswara (eleventh century) at Udayapur, but the rock-cut temple at Damnar is apparently the archetype of all these Apart from its plan, this temple is of the usual design consisting of a sanctum, a pillared hall and a small two-pillared portico, the extreme external length of the whole being 50 feet, and its widest part is 35 feet. It is quite finished, even to its interior, the mandapa consisting of a hall 21 feet square, with four central pillars and eight side pilasters supporting a flat recessed roof. Except for its rock technique, and the fact that it is eight-shrined, there is however nothing of special architectural merit in this rather unusual adaptation of the northern style.