The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.85

v2.c17.85

**Courtyard in front :**—Entering the enclosure from the propyllon on the east, the visitor first comes to a paved courtyard, 65 feet long from east to west, and 50 feet broad from the north to the south. It is paved with stones, and is perfectly clear of incumbrances except three little mounds on the right hand side, close by the gateway. Beyond, on the right and left it is flanked by several dissimilar small temples of different dates, and of no importance. One of them, a flatroofed one, has a parapet of a peculiar construction, the like of which occurs only on the top of the Nāṭ Mandir. It is formed of a series of crest-tiles not unlike Saracenic battlements and somewhat similar to the Norman Tudor flowers (see Woodcut No. 3). The temple is dedicated to Gopālinī, or the goddess Durgā in the form of a cowherdess, the same who destroyed the demons Kīrti and Vāsa, (see ante, pp. [66-7]. To the west of it there is a flight of six stone steps, each 48 feet 7 inches long, and 3 feet 6 inches broad, the total height of the steps being four feet. This court shows the original level of the ground to have been same with that of the little temple noticed above: it is just 3 feet below the level of the road outside. Above the steps to the base of the foremost building of the Great Tower the distance is 22 feet, and the area is conterminous with the area on the other sides. On the centre of it, right in front of the gateway, but a little to the left of the central entrance of the foremost building, there is a monolithic column 2 feet in diameter and 20 feet high, surmounted by a bull-couchant. The plinth of this column is square; it has no base moulding of any kind, and its capital is perfectly plain; being formed alternately of two cavetoes and two tiles. In style it bears no relation to the building around it, and is evidently of a comparatively modern date, erected long after the Great Tower and its enclosure.