Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c38.6

c38.6

Taking the first of these movements, that which found favour in the southernmost portion of the Bengal area, and was in some respects a provincial phase of the Orissa School, this may be studied at various places but principally in Mayurbhanj State, and in the Bengal districts of Bankura and Burdwan. In Mayurbhanj is the ancient site of Khiching, now a small village near the western portion of the State, but at one time comprising the capital of a principality, its ruined shrines and sikharas indicating that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Bhanja rules maintained a school of architecture and sculpture of no mean order¹ Obviously a derivative of that great group of monuments at Bhubaneswar, although there are remains of an earlier date, the most significant example is the unfinished temple of Khandiya Deul, the fine doorway of which is still preserved. A feature of the Khiching shrine is that none of them possesses a *mukhamandapa* or portico, and most of those of the same class built in Bengal follow a similar plan, which has led a Hindu authority to observe that "a richly ornamented temple without a portico appears a more pious structure than one with a portico, for in the former the lamp of sacrifice burns with greater brilliance."² Apart from the style of this small group as well as in other respects Khiching forms a connecting link between the development in Southern Bengal and that of Orissa.