The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c22.s1.12

c22.s1.12

The door of the closed hall, under the south porch, is very rich in decorative detail, but it is very much injured (Plate XCII). A great deal of the tracery, up the sides, like that of the hall door of Kaśiviśveśvara at Lakkuṇḍi, has been very much undercut, and the manner in which this has been injured would lead one to suppose that persons had been trying to knock off portions to carry away. The larger figures, that adorned the lower parts of the door jambs to the number of ten or so, and which were fixed in their places by tenons and slots, have all been removed. Above the doorway is a row of little niche shrines, each surmounted by a miniature śikhara, and supported by little pillars in full relief. These, no doubt, once held small images, but none of these now remain. It was not the practice of the Muḥammadans to carry off images, unless it was some very special one which they wished to dishonour; it sufficed to mutilate them where they stood, so that the evidence of their iconoclastic zeal might be plain to all eyes. Upon the dedicatory block is Gaja-Lakṣmī, who also presides over the shrine doorway. The shrine is quite empty, but lying in the antechamber is the śaluṅkā of a liṅga which is too small to have been the original one, being but 15" square.