The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.87

v2.c16.87

**Svargapuri Caves** :---To the west of the Queen's Palace, at the head of the road proceeding northwards from the Government bungalow and the *byrāgi's maṭh*, there is a flight of steps leading to the upper floor of a two-storeyed range of caves called Svargapuri, or "the celestial regions" (Plate I, C, and Plate XVII). It offers one of two instances in Udayagiri, in which caves of one storey have beem cut right on the top of another. or, in other. words, of a really two-storeyed structure,—such as houses are,—and not merely apparently two-storeyed but really one-storeyed, the upper one resting on solid rock right above but behind the lower storey, as in the Queen's Palace. The lower storey includes a suite of two rooms with a range of verandah divided into two by a partition wall, with a hall on the right hand side. The pillars of the verandah have fellen down, exposing the interior; but the hall on the side remains intact. It has an only door-way, but of large size, framed with side pilasters and an arched ornamental band over the door-head. From the top of the pilasters, runs, laterally on each side, a line of Buddhist rails surmounted by an elephant in bas-relief, with a human figure and a tree behind it. The elephants are remarkably well carved, and in good preservation (Plate XVII), but the human figures are very much defaced. The tympanum of the door had some carving on it, probably a female standing on a lotus bush, but it is so broken that nothing satisfactory can be made out of it. The upper floor includes, like the lower, two rooms, with a verandah in front. The front pillars are broken, but from the remnants of two on the partition wall they appear to have been of the Queen's Palace type, square above and below, and octagonal in the middle of the shaft. No carving or inscription of any kind occurs in this range. Passing from the verandah to the right-hand side on the top of the hall, the visitor comes to a small open terrace, having on one side a moundlike prominence with a cubical chamber on top, barely large enough to hold an emaciated man in a sitting posture. By the side of this prominence, a few rough steps lead to the top of the left wing of the Queen's Palace.