The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.197.3

v1.c9.197.3

All its nobler specimens, if cut longitudinally along the middle from their fronts, would invariably produce two exactly similar halves. The same is the case in Orissa, and there is not a single exception. The front is a combination of two halves reduced to unity by the intervention of the door and the coat of arms, or the dripstone moulding, over it, even as the human form is united by the nose and the mouth ; and the two sides are exact counterparts of each other.` The sameness induced by this arrangement is never obtrusive nor offensive, as the two sides can never be seen in the same light at the same instant : stand where the observer will, he can behold only one or two sides, or one full side and small portions of two other sides, together scarcely equal to two full sides, and these in such different [ 75 ] lights, that they never produce two identically same pictures, while the sense of beauty produced by them is infinitely greater than any diversity in the forms of the sides could possibly produce. Indeed, if one were to conceive in his mind a peripteral temple with the columns of its left side different from those of its right, and feel the aesthetic effect of the arrangements, he will find no difficulty in appreciating the beauty of form which results from the similitude of the two sides of a house.