The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.45

v1.c9.45

**Weather-moulding:** The simplest weather-moulding for doorways, windows, archways, niches &c, is a flat projecting tablet formed of a single slab, occasionally enriched with pellets, beads, ovules or other small ornaments; but in decorated work and particularly over the back ground of alti-rilievi, it is generally arched, having the inner edge foiled, and is elaborately ornamented all over. The keystone ornament for such an arch is ordinarily a lion's head, and when not placed on pillars, it springs from corbels, or brackets, of various designs. The back-frame of the statue of Bhagavatī in the Great Tower (Illustration No. 45) may be referred to as a characteristic example of this arch. Over the side doors of temples, the lion's head is generally replaced by the figure of a simple or eccentric circle ornamented with beads and other decorations, and flanked by men, women, monkeys, alligators and other supporters. These look the very counterparts of European coats of arms, the scalloped European buckler being replaced by the Indian circular or oblong shield. The position of the supporters in the two cases are exactly alike. Sometimes the shield is placed above the lion's head. A plain, but very neat, specimen of an oblong shield with two female supporters is shown in Illustration No. 46. Monkeys and crocodiles as supporters are common, and elephants are occasionally met with, but I do not remember to have noticed any deer, horses, unicorns, or lions. The ornament is highly effective, and the architects have taken great pains to place it on prominent and attractive places, particularly near the springs of towers and the pyramidal roofs of porches, as also over door-frames and hood-moulds. The eccentric circular figure referred to above, and represented on lancet-headed crests, and a variety of other situations, forms a peculiar and characteristic feature of Uriyā art. It is formed of two, three, and rarely of four circles of different diameters, the lower peripheries resting on each other, but the top of the outer one, and not uncommonly of all the circles, opening like the mouth of a pitcher, or more commonly drawn out in a line like the stem of a glass-bulb. It is to be presumed that it has a mystical meaning, and that of a phallic character, as it is closely similar in shape to the *yoni* which encircles the middle of the *lingam*. Illustration No. 38 from the Sārideül offers a characteristic specimen of the ornament.