The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c42.s1.7

c42.s1.7

The Chandranāthēśvara Basti is situated in the fields to the north of the town, and is composed of two blocks of buildings joined together by an intervening porch, the whole running east and west and facing east. The main block, that on the west, is in two storeys. The ground floor contains the principal hall, supported, within, upon six pillars, enclosed with perforated screen walls, and the shrine with its two parallel chambers extending across the whole width of the building (Plate CXLVII). The floors of each of the antechambers and the shrine rise one above the other from the hall floor which is lowest. Save for the elaborately carved *dvārapālas*, on one either side of the doorways of the outer antechamber the interior is remarkably plain. Above the doorways, on the lintels are little seated Jinas. Within the shrine were three altars for images which have been thrown down, but the lower portions of two of these lie within the shrine. Below one is carved the waterpot, the symbol of the *tīrthankara* Mallinātha, while below the other is the bull, the symbol of Rishabha-nātha. The floors have been paved.