The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c20.s1.1

c20.s1.1

T HIS temple, which is chiefly remarkable for the magnificent dome which covers the central portion of the great hall, is situated in the town of Hāngal, in the south-west corner of the Dhārwār district (Plates LXXXVI, LXXXVII and LXXXIX—XCI). This dome, which measures twenty-one feet in diameter, is supported by eight large pillars, placed at the corners of an octagon, and eight smaller pillars placed, in pairs, between these on each side of the octagon (Plate LXXXIX). The last are inserted to take off some of the weight coming upon the centre of each beam, which would otherwise tend to crack it. The dome rises for about nine feet from the octagon in five ascending tiers of circles of cusped mouldings, and, towards the centre, descends again in a splendidly cusped and star-shaped central pendant, which hangs some five feet below the highest point of the ceiling. These cusps are not merely flat ornament, but each is hollowed out as a quarter of a hollow sphere. The drawing explains the design better than description (Plate XC). It has been recorded in the Bombay Gazetteer that it is worked out of one huge stone, but this is not the case, for a close examination of the dome will show that it is built up of many stones in the usual way. These domes are not built after the methods of European construction with radiating voussoirs, but of ring upon ring of stones, laid upon horizontal beds, each closing in more and more all the way up to the top. The stones are thus corbelled forward one over the other, and are kept in position by the heavy filling-in above the haunches. It is then dressed, underneath, to the beautiful concentric circles of mouldings as we find it, the stones having first been cut in the rough before being put up. This method of construction is certainly remarkable, and one cannot help wondering the more at it after examining the great heavy pendant hanging from the centre. It almost seems as if it must drag the whole ceiling down to destruction. In each of the corners of the octagon, above each pillar, is a small slab bearing one of the ashtadikpālas or regents of the cardinal points, seated on his vāhana beneath a little floral arch.