The Hindu Temple v1.c9.s2.t2.4

v1.c9.s2.t2.4

Type IIA has the multiples of its own form set forth in the 4 directions; they ascend moreover from the corners, and each time to the same height as the respective Uromañjarīs; they are accompanied furthermore in this massed competition towards the apex, by lesser replicas at the base, attaining to smaller fractions of the height while they reinforce on their own, lower levels the urgency of the ascent. Each of these multiple replicas has a ‘neck’ (grīvā), Āmalaka and finial of its own; while these terminate the single forms, they punctuate the striving of the entire mass of the superstructure towards the final point which lies beyond its trunk, whatever its height. The single Śṛṅgas, as a rule, are spaced with increasing distances towards the top whereas the single Bhūmis or horizontal courses of which each Śṛṅga is composed, decrease in height towards the summit of the Śikhara. A counter-play of proportions results from this double progression, contracting on the upper register of the wall surfaces of each Śṛṅga and expanding with reference to the superstructure as a whole. Its tension makes even more ostensibly coherent the substantiality of the monument whose texture thus is seen not as that of the stone or the bricks but appears to be composed of the acceleration and the halting of the ascent.