The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c13.33

c13.33

The date of this Dharmarâja Rath,¹ as it is now called, has been ascertained with tolerable certainty as *circa* 670-700 a.d. It is a reproduction in miniature of a Saivaite monastery of four storeys; it is, in fact, an amplification of the plan of the Bharhut Bodhi tree shrine shown in Pl. IX, d, by the provision of accommodation for devotees permanently attaching themselves to it. The nine-spired temple at Buxar, in the Hughli district, and similar twenty-five-spired ones at Lâlgi and other places in Bengal, are designed on the same principle; only the Bengali roofs have a convex curvature, on account of the heavy rainfall of the locality, and the square cells are crowned with Vishnu sikharas instead of by Siva domes.