The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.65.3

v2.c16.s2.65.3

Then comes a lion held by its near hind leg by a man, who stands on the head of an athlete similar to the figure at the opposite spring of the arch. The crown of the arch is formed by the intertwining of the tails of two serpents, whose bodies encircle the arch, and whose triple-headed hoods form two prominent wings on its two sides. Over the arch is seen a Buddhist rail running in continuation with the parapet on the verandah. Under the rail, and the pyramidal battlements is a series of squared blocks or a corbel table for the support of the arch. Of course here the whole wall with the frieze and ornaments on it being cut out of the solid rock, the corbels are utterly uncalled for as mechanical supports, and must, therefore, be taken as attempts to represent in stone the ends of rafters which in a wooden house would form the sustaining members of cornices and other superstructure, as unquestionably most corbels are, but their presence can no more be accepted as a proof of the recent transition of the caves from wood to stone than the corbel table under the cornice of the Pantheon, be assumed to be a proof of that glory of the builder's art having been copied directly from a wooden model. As elsewhere stated, there is a spirit of survival of custom which continues long after the exigencies which gives its birth, and this is one of them.