The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.119.4

v2.c16.s2.119.4

The ground-plan of the Gaṇeśa is only repeated three times in the Queen’s Palace, twice to form the two wings and once to form the western facade, with only such variations in the number and disposition of the rooms as circumstances required, but nothing to indicate any originality. Generally speaking, architectural details are the most important as tests regarding style, and relying on them, it is impossible to detect any difference that would justify our supposing the two sets of caves to belong to two different ages. As already stated in the text, they are all but indentically the same. The differences they exhibit are due to individual peculiarity, and not to age and style. It is the farthest from my intention to deny altogether the value of sculptures as tests of age, but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that they yield too much elbow-room for speculation and are wanting in that certainty which dated inscriptions rightly interpreted, are calculated to afford. To persons gifted with that perfection of imagination which, could, like Dean Swift, “fill up a volume on a broomstick” the plasticity and elasticity of architectural and sculptural evidence may be welcome, but the stiffness of dated inscriptions is more agreeable to sober-minded ordinary mortals.