The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c7.23

c7.23

The ventilation was no better than the lighting. Were it not that the masonry of these temples is porous, being built without any cementing material, and thus allowing the air to percolate through to some extent, the atmosphere would soon become absolutely unbearable. As it is, laden with the smells from the burning lamp and the crude oil and unguents used in the worship, it is not, by any means, pleasant to a person entering straight from the outer air. In the deserted temple, as so many of them are, these smells are replaced by the stench of bats, which crowd in, and hang, like stalactites, to the fretted ornament of the domes.