The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c25.s1.2

c25.s1.2

The tower, as it now stands, rises in three tiers or storeys, with a few of the lower courses of the masonry of the fourth which carried the finial. These stages are quite distinct, and are not so cut up and masked by decorative detail as in the temple of Sōmēśvara at Gadag. The little cusped niches, which decorate the centre of each storey, rising one above the other, are exceedingly handsome; and the deep cusping of the roll moulding, which is pointed with little hanging buds, is designed in very graceful curves. Their delicate lace-like workmanship is further enhanced by the background of rich dark shadows of the niche. These beautiful wreaths of filigree are repeated as ornament in the recessed panels of the walls below and, in two cases, one on either side of the shrine, serve as window frames, the spaces between the rolls forming the lights. The sculptor has amused himself by introducing small groups of monkeys among the mouldings of the tower. The three principal niches on the shrine walls, boldly accentuated by their deep projecting cornices, are now empty, their images having disappeared. Some eighteen inches or two feet of the basement mouldings of the walls are embedded beneath the accumulated earth around the building.