The Hindu Temple v1.c9.s3.15

v1.c9.s3.15

The Prāsāda with a pyramidal superstructure upon the ‘cube’—or prism⁸²—of its walls on the other hand preserves the distinctiveness of these two shapes (Fig. h). They cohere but do not coalesce. In plan, the walls with their flat buttresses where are the niches for the images, show their straight outline broken only by shallow effects in regular intervals (Fig. in Part VII); they do not jut out by being set off one against the other—as they do in temples having a curvilinear Śikhara—especially in the centre of each side whereby the walls of the square Garbhagṛha and of the Śikhara assume the shape of a cross, in the plan and in any horizontal section. The proliferating vitality by which the square of the Garbhagṛha is commuted into the cross, or into the circle of the stellate shape (Pl. XLIII) of the perimeter of the Prāsāda does not belong to the temple with the pyramidal superstructure.