Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c35.7

c35.7

The other famous temple-city of Kathiawar, that on the hill of Girnar near the historic town of Junagadh (Uparkot), is situated on the top of a great cliff some six hundred feet below the actual summit, but still nearly three thousand feet above sea level. Although not so numerous a collection of shrines as those on Satrunjaya, from which it is distant barely a hundred miles, a few of its buildings are of an earlier date. As an instance of this, the largest of the Girnar group, the temple of Neminatha, bearing an inscription indicating that it was restored in the 13th century, is probably not very different in its general appearance from what it was when first built about a century before. More recent renovations may perhaps have robbed it of some of its original character, but it is still a building of marked size and distinction. It is possible to obtain a comprehensive view of this temple from a point of the hill above it, the entire scheme depicting a very carefully designed plan. Standing within a quadrangular courtyard measuring 190 feet by 130, it is surrounded by a range of pillared cloisters containing over seventy cells. The temple building is placed towards the western end of this enclosure leaving a wide sweep of pavement in front to add dignity to its proportions, the structure itself having a plan of 120 feet long and 60 feet wide. The mandapa is a handsome hall 43 feet square with an open space in the centre constituting the nave, around which is a colonnade of twenty-two pillars forming the aisles. It is however in the exterior elevation of the vimana that the early character of the temple may be detected, as this is composed of a grouping of turrets around the central tower on a system common in the temple architecture of western India of about the twelfth century.