Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c9.s1.4

c9.s1.4

Of figure sculpture upon the temple there is very little, and what there is is chiefly confined to small images in little panels around the porches. These consist of representations of scenes from the Rāmāyaṇa, female dancing figures, and others of the different manifestations of the various gods and goddesses. The few images that occur upon the main walls are very poorly carved and savour much of later work than that of Ambarnātha. Little pilasters and lozenge-shaped flowers occupy, for the most part, the niches usually reserved for images. The principal images upon the temple are those upon the outside of the shrine walls. These are, above the gargoyle on the north side, and under the large niche, a four-handed devī or goddess, and, on the south side of the shrine, Brahmī with three faces and a goose below her. The corresponding image on the west or back of the temple has been removed. Upon each face of the temple, above these, is a deep canopied niche in which were placed the more important of the images, but they are now empty. Each has Gaja-Lakshmī above its cornice. On either side of the mass of masonry standing out before the base of the śikhara, that is, between the latter and the pyramidal roof of the hall, are two niches one above the other. In those on the north side of the temple are Śiva above, and what looks like Bhairava below. While the lower niche on the south side is empty, the upper one contains Śiva dancing the tāṇḍava. Attached to the pillars of the porches were ornamental bracket figures of females, but of these, of which there were four in each porch, two remain in the east or main porch—one very much damaged—and three in the north porch. The pilasters also had bracket figures, but they were of lions or griffins, and, of these, three remain out of six. On the whole, the images are very poorly carved and shew to very great disadvantage beside those on the small temple of Aeśvara to the north-west of the town. The ornamental gargoyle, through which the waste water from the shrine passes out, upon the north side of the temple, is, though mutilated, a particularly fine piece of work. It is in the shape of the conventional makara so frequently introduced into temple decoration.