Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c7.s1.2

c7.s1.2

The little village of Ambarnātha is situated about four miles south-east of Kalyān, and a mile and a half west of the Ambarnātha station on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, in the Thāna District. At a short distance to the east of the village, in a hollow upon the bank of a small stream, stands the venerable pile of weather-stained sculptured stone—the old temple of Ambarnātha. It is practically in disuse at present, a solitary pujāri attending once or twice a day to strew a few flowers upon its almost deserted linga. The general mass of the building has a rather heavy and gloomy look, owing, in great measure, to the truncated condition of its sikhara, and the absence of the many crowning finials of the roof which originally lightened its otherwise heavy outline. Upon closer inspection the mass breaks up into a thousand facets of light and shade, and the rich and multitudinous carvings of its surface reveal themselves in all their fantasy of design and form. The walls are found to be cunningly arranged in alternate projections and recesses. These, again, are crossed by horizontal lines of deeply cut mouldings, which, with the great profusion of images, large and small, produce a most bewildering but, withal, pleasing effect of chiaroscuro. (Plates III—XI.)