Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c13.s9.13

c13.s9.13

At Dhotra, eighteen miles south of Chikhli, are three old temples, the one about a quarter of a mile south of the village, in the fields, being the most important. It is a temple of Śiva, faces the east, and consists of a shrine and a closed *maṇḍapa*. The entrance is in the east end of the hall, opposite the shrine, while, off each of the two sides of the hall, is a deep recess like a shallow shrine without a doorway. A most unusual thing with the pilasters in this temple is that their shafts are built in sections, with the courses of the wall masonry, and are not, as in earlier work, a single stone built into the wall. The bracket capitals of the pillars have the cobra ornament upon them. Within the shrine is a *liṅga*. The dedicatory blocks above the shrine doorways have been left plain without images. (Plate CXII.)