The Hindu Temple v1.c8.s3.7

v1.c8.s3.7

The entire structure moreover of certain temples rests on a wide terrace (Kaṭi, Jagaṭi; Pl. I; Part VII, first chart, and note 21) and more than one building may rise from one and the same terrace. Another name of the Jagaṭi is Pīṭhika or Jagaṭi-pīṭha ('Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra', LXVIII. 4. and 35). After the planning of the temple, with its ground plan (saṃsthāna), vertical section (unmāna) and its special architectural form (lakṣaṇāni) the Jagaṭi should be devised correspondingly (cf. ib. 12). Its width is given in proportion to that of the Prāsāda; assuming the latter to be 8 padas it is 28 padas (Ch. LXIX. 41-42) or, in another mouldings; they continue the theme of the Pīṭha or socle with its horizontal mouldings. Below the socle moreover a sub-socle or pedestal (upapīṭha) is piled in some temples and adds to their height. In these lower parts of the temple, the pedestal, Adhiṣṭhāna, the socle, and the Vedikā is embodied the memory of the sacred ground (vedi) with its piled altar (citi) whence the sacrificial offerings were carried up by the flaming fire. The place of the flame is now taken by the structure on its socle; it arises with perpendicular walls and a pointed superstructure. Neither the form of the socle with its horizontal mouldings nor that of the temple on it imply a derivation from the form of the Agni or its flame; but it is the knowledge of these rites which survives in architectural forms. Even in some of the last buildings in which a living tradition was at work, such as the temple of the Sun at Koṇārak in Orissa (thirteenth century), or its contemporaries in Mysore or in a twelfth century temple in Rajputana, and in earlier temples in Central India, Rajputana and Gujerat, the memory survives, on the walls of the socle and the Vedikā, of the substance of which the altar was built; wherein had been placed the heads of the sacrificial victims, man, horse, also the Śarabha (‘Aitareya Brāhmaṇa’, I. 6. 8. 6), and the other ‘animals’. It was cemented with a mixture to which these sacrificial animals had contributed. Rites are remembered and, as it were, crystallise in this instance on the surface of the temples in the shapes of men, horse, other animals and the Kīrttimukha, which are carved in horizontal bands around their socle.⁴⁶ The living memory of the Fire Altar however has not only remained at the