The Hindu Temple v2.c12.236

v2.c12.236

That the Śukanāsā is a blind, is seen in this side view where its marginal convolutions extend, detached from the body of the building, and their flaps partly cover the two superimposed miniature ‘shrines’ carved at its back. This is peculiar also to the Śukanāsikās (Pl. XLV) but there the antefix closely adheres to the curved body of the Śikhara whereas the great Śukanāsā in the East is the ‘façade’, extended upwards of the Antarāla, the antechamber or porch of the Garbhagṛha. The Antarāla acts as the narrow passage from Maṇḍapa to Garbhagṛha (Fig. on p. 256); in the ground plan it is the incision which separates, and at the same time connects, Maṇḍapa and Prāsāda. Here it has a superstructure of its own, a keel vaulted body which juts out from the Śikhara. The sides are encased in a five storeyed mansion (Pl. XLIX) in which the image of Śiva is displayed in many of its forms and flanked by attendant divinities. The two upper storeys of this celestial mansion are shown on Pl. XLVIII. The ridge of the keel shape is capped by a massive 'covered' passage which leads from the Kīrttimukha to the central offset of the Śikhara and links the mask, to the building. The chessboard pattern on the walls of the passage is overcast by shade from the canopy or cornice so that the drama enacted there, in light and shade, responds to the more substantial engagement of contesting warriors carved in high relief below the chessboard pattern. They have an ancone fillet as their base and must be imagined as the continuation of the figures carved in the round and come forth from the mouth of the Makara, out of the pouches of the Face of Glory.