History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s5.36

v1.c19.s5.36

Though not the oldest, this is the most important as well as the largest temple of this style in the Kanarese districts. It is the only one now in use in Pattadakal; the others, mostly of great age and interest, are used as dwellings or cattle-sheds. Four of the larger are all of the same style—the sikharas being all square pyramids, divided into distinct storeys, and each storey ornamented with imitation cells, alternately oblong and square. Their ornamentation is coarser or more archaic than that of the later Chalukyan style, and the domical termination of the spires is less graceful. They are wanting, too, in that general elegance of form and detail which are so characteristic of the latter, but are not without a purpose-like boldness of form, expression of stability, and a certain amount of grandeur, though this is more readily observable in the larger temples in the south of India than in those of Pattadakal. If we compare it with the more modern temples, however, it will be seen how much the latter lost by the gradually growing steepness of outline and attenuation of details. The more modern forms are not without a certain degree of elegance which is wanting in the more ancient, but in all the higher characteristics of design, the older are by far the finest examples.