The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.65.1

v2.c16.s2.65.1

The cave temple stands to the south of this terrace, and comprises a narrow long room with four doorways and a verandah in front (Plate XVIII). The length of the room is greater in front than behind, but the reverse is the case with the length of the verandah; the greatest length of the former being twenty-four feet and six inches in front, and the shortest behind twenty-one feet and six inches, and of the latter in front twenty-five feet, and behind twenty-seven feet. The breadth of the former is seven feet and of the latter five feet. The verandah has a range of three pillars, which with the terminal piers produce four openings corresponding to the four doorways of the chamber. The pillars are divided into three sections, of which the central one is octagonal, and the lower [32] and upper ones square. They have no plinths nor any distinct capital; but each of them has in front of the place where the capital should have been a bracket projecting forwards and shaped like a woman. The architrave is heavy, and over it, supported on corbels, is a parapet formed of pyramidal battlements with intervening bunches of flowers. The walls both of the room and of the verandah are perfectly perpendicular, but the ceiling of the room is slightly arched, whereas that of the verandah is flat. The only carved ornament in the room is an image of Buddha in low relief on the centre of the back wall.