Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c36.26

c36.26

Most typical and complete is the Kesava temple at Somnathpur² situated about twenty miles from Seringapatam, a triple shrine, or *trīkutachala*, and illustratıng the style in its late maturity. (Plate CXXV). The temple itself occupies the middle of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by sixty-four cells each with pillars in front, the whole enclosure measuring 215 feet by 177 feet, and forming an appropriate cloistered setting. Owing to its combination of three shrines, the temple plan is in the shape of a cross, its greatest length being 87 feet and its width 83 feet, with its sole entrance on the east. These very moderate dımensions enable one, on entering the courtyard through its eastern gateway, to see this building in its entirety at a single glance, and it is indeed a very perfect and finished production, a small, but typical example of the style. So wellbalanced and finely proportioned are its parts that no element obtrudes or is out of place, and although the three stellate towers are only thirty feet high, they are fully in accord with the rest of the building. The temple structure stands on a high platform, the outlines of which run parallel to the plan of the building, following the points of its stellate shape, but leaving a space some seven feet wide all round, as an ambulatory. Its plan is fairly simple as it consists of a main pillared hall in the centre, at the western end of which are the three shrines, one in axial alignment with the hall, the others projecting laterally, like transepts, thus producing its cruciform effect. The exterior walls, parapet, and towers are disposed and embellished according to the conventional system already described. A single pillared hall measuring 41 feet long by 30 feet wide comprises the interior, but this is actually a composite of the two compartments of the *mukha-mandapa*, or front hall, and the *navaranga*, or middle hall, the former containing twelve pillars and the latter four, all elaborately lathe-turned in the manner of the style. From each of the three interior walls of the middle hall a doorway leads to a square vestibule or *sukhanasi*, beyond which, in each instance, is the cella. (Plates CXXVI and CXXV).