Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c43.47

c43.47

There are other architectural elements forming essential and artistic portions of Angkor Vat and the buildings of this period, all well worthy of study, of which the elaborately sculptured tympanums over the openings, niches, and gable ends, hold an important place. These "overdoors" take a variety of shapes, often being composed of arches with emphatically involuted curves and invariably enriched with figures and foliage, the figures in high relief occupying alcoves, thus by their structure contributing to the stability of this feature as a whole. Although the carved figures are mainly drawn from the religious and mythological records of the country some of the subjects appertain more to the secular in which *apsaras*, or nymphs, and others of semi-divine attribution display their voluptuousness elegantly posed on the sides of pillar, pilaster and pier. Of the carved patterns the foliage convention, the modelling and technical manipulation of these arabesques are of a very distinctive character, so much so that they might actually be the handiwork of the sculptors who decorated the temples and palaces of Oakhnauti, the ancient capital of the Pal empire in Bengal of the tenth and eleventh centuries, so exactly do they resemble in design and relief the productions of the famous Varendra School.