The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c28.s2.1

c28.s2.1

In another temple, that of Tripurāntaka, which is very much ruined, towards the north-east side of the village, is some very good perforated stonework in the form of windows and screens. The two sides of the shrine doorway have most remarkable panels. They are each filled with three pairs of Nāga figures, whose long serpentine extremities are so intertwined and knotted as to fill up the panels, leaving as lights the interstices between the coils of the tails and the bodies (Plate CXV). Above the doorway is an elaborate architrave bearing the images of Brahmā, Śiva and Viṣṇu, with the dikpālas and a host of minor deities surrounding them. Śiva is here represented in his Bhairava form. In the same hall, upon the north side, is a pair of windows similar in design to the panels on either side of the east doorway at Unkal. In a narrow band of bas-reliefs, round the exterior of the temple, are a series of most obscene pairs of figures, which are not often found upon Chālukyan temples. As a rule they are confined to very small figures, and are only discovered upon a close inspection of the walls. The larger sculptures seldom ever contain such work.