Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s1.7

c8.s1.7

Of the same style and age is the decorated temple with the three porches in the group on the east of the village. Here we have a temple on the same general plan as that of Ambarnātha except that, in the plan of the shrine the corners are at different angles with one another. The plan is of the star-shaped variety, as will be found repeated in the temple of Mudhai Devī at Vāghlī and in Gulteśvara at Sarnaī in the Kaira District and elsewhere. The temple faces east. The shrine is a total wreck, sufficient of the basement remaining to show what its plan was like. The ceiling panels, within the hall, are similar to those in the first temple described, save that the marginal coved ceilings, being much broader, struts rise at an angle, from the capitals of the four central pillars, to help to carry the additional weight. In the basement the garāspatti, or band of kīrtimukhas, is here replaced by a band of rosettes and lozenge-shaped flowers, the former being not unlike the heraldic rose. The shrine doorway, which still stands, is almost identical in design with that of the first temple, and, upon its dedicatory block is Gaṇapati. Curiously, the kīrtimukha faces are absent from the threshold of the first temple but are inserted upon the face of the slender pilaster on either side.