The Hindu Temple v2.c12.30

v2.c12.30

The mouldings of the socle, the Pīṭha, in the temples of Khajuraho, are relatively more restrained than those of the lowermost part of the wall, the Vedikā, where the widely projecting Torus shape of the Kumuda effects a transition from architectural to sculptural form. It accompanies every buttress (ratha) and extends into every recess (salilāntara) with multiple repetitions of its profile, broken thus into a series of square pillow shapes with lateral extensions, like petals. This moulding with its neck, placed as it is above the combined Kumbha and Paṭṭikā below, has, on each buttress, the appearance of a small Stūpa-like monument; its front face moreover is carved in the likeness of a small shrine (kūṭa); its sheltering depth, on the major buttresses, is occupied by an image (Viṣṇu on Garuḍa, on the central Bhadra) while a lotus rosette takes its place on the Rathas. These miniature shrines in relief have an elaborately carved pediment (siṃhakarṇa) composed of Gavākṣas. The pediment exceeds the height of the Kumbha and, oversecting the recess, links the lower mouldings of which it is itself the highest surface, with the forms above the necking; it helps to knit the horizontal mouldings into a pattern of vertical offsets.