The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.16

v1.c9.16

**Solidity :** This impression is further greatly heightened by the solidity and extreme massiveness of the temples. According to the verse quoted above from the *Agni Purāṇa*, (*ante*, p. [27]), the walls of buildings should occupy four-tenths of the area, leaving six-tenths for the space of the room. This rule assimilates to a great extent with the practice of the architects of Egypt, Greece and Rome; but in the principal temples of Orissa it is greatly exceeded. Indeed, the excessive solidity of Orissan piles implies, either a sad want of constructive ingenuity, or an unnecessary and most lavish waste of materials. But the end directed the operation of their builders, and that end was, next to what Professor Lübke describes architecture to be, "the aesthetic manifestation of the law of gravity", the greatest stability for that peculiar form of building which Uriyā art could attain—a stability which should not only rise above the atmospheric influence of the Indian climate, and defy its tremendous elemental commotions, but rival even the eternity of the divinity whose fanes the structures were intended to serve, and firmly to impress that idea on the imagination of the beholder. With such an end in view it is not remarkable that constructive elegance and economy of materials, should have been looked upon as questions of secondary importance. That it was not the result of want of ingenuity is evident from the comparative lightness of the Dancing halls, Gateways and other structures of the time. The following table shows the relative proportions of the chambers and the walls of some of the principal temples of Orissa. The measurements are rough, and must be taken as only approximate:—