The Hindu Temple v2.c12.259

v2.c12.259

The octagonal part of the shaft of the pillars is clasped by a belt of flying figures; high triangles rise from it across the series of rings of the round portion of the pillar. Their shapes prepare the mouldings of the round capital (bharaṇa), thence issue the bracket capitals, Hīragrahaṇa (?) and Śīrṣa, with their gusts of flying Gaṇas. Their carved images are the ‘outcome’ of the architectural potency of the brackets; they uphold the weight of the superstructure—above the pillars, as it were. It does not press down and the shafts stand, it would appear, free of it. The Gaṇas whose shapes are fitted into those of the brackets and corbels are not caryatids. They fly horizontally from the bulk of the capital into space and appear to communicate the weight above them to the space around them. The effect of the soaring bulk of corbels and bracket capitals is supported by the pillars whose base and shaft are modifications of their vertical shape; the base projects but little from the square lower part of the shaft against which are carved shrines each housing an image. Thus the base does not spread on the ground; its mouldings and carvings form the prelude to those of the shaft and capital (see also the “wall-pillar” or pilaster).