History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s9.10

v1.c19.s9.10

Looked at from a distance, or in any direction where the whole can be grasped at once, these fourteen or fifteen great gate towers cannot fail to produce a certain effect, as may be gathered from the view in Woodcut No. 219; but even then it can only be by considering them as separate buildings. As parts of one whole, their arrangement is exactly that which enables them to produce the least possible effect that can be obtained either from their mass or ornament. Had the four great outer gopurams formed the sides of a central hall or court, and the others gone on diminishing, in three or four directions, to the exterior, the effect of the whole would have been increased in a surprising degree. To accomplish this, however, one other defect must have been remedied: a gateway even 150 ft. wide in a wall nearly 2000 ft. in extent is a solecism nothing can redeem; but had the walls been broken in plan or star-shaped, like the plans of Chalukyan temples, light and shade would have been obtained, and due proportions of parts, without any inconvenience. But if the Dravidians ever had it in them to think of such things, it was not during the 17th and 18th centuries, to which most things in this temple seem to belong. The shrines and inner prâkâras, however, must be of much earlier date, for we find Jatâvarman Sundara Pândya, about 1254, making large gifts and additions to the temple; and in 1371 Kampana Udaiyar of Vijayanagar was engaged repairing it.²