The Hindu Temple v2.c12.248

v2.c12.248

Steps lead up across the mouldings of the projecting base (Padma, etc.) with their enrichments. The Vedi proper, the main portion of the vertical walls is underlined by a dwarf railing between boldly projecting fillets (paṭṭikā; giri patrikā of the Rājasenā or Senaka), above and below, which add their dark lines of shadows to those of the base. The Vedi, a railing of square pillars, is enlivened by the images of attendant goddesses carved in high relief from the intervening slabs. The coping (āsana paṭṭaka) of the Vedi is set with knobs which are miniature roofs of conical shape; their finial emerges from a broad Āmalaka. (No such roofs have as yet been found on any buildings. They resemble the conical roofs of a Śrikoil of the Malabar Coast although these lack the cyma profile of the cone and are without the Āmalaka. The slanting back of the seat (kakṣāsana) juts out from the vertical wall, and runs above the Vedī, from the entrance along the walls of this balcony-hall (Fig. on p. 256); it has the shape of a balustrade in which pairs of beaded uprights are set in the spaces between the carved stone-planks.