The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.87

v2.c17.s1.87

The ground plan of the temple is shewn in plate XLIX. It is, as usual at Bhuvaneśvara, founded on a square, but its position is that of a lozenge, and its projections have been so carried out, as to produce a lozenge with serrated sides. The area of the chamber does not correspond with this outline; nor is it a perfect square as most of the sanctuaries of Bhuvaneśvara are. It is square in position, and has the front side straight; but the other three sides are broken by three-fold projections. The extreme width of the chamber is 12 feet, and its length 14 feet. The walls are on an average 10 feet thick. The passage leading from the porch to the sanctuary is in its widest part 9 feet, then 7 feet and then 4 feet. The porch is oblong, the greatest length extending from side to side. It is, both externally and internally, diversified by many projections. The extreme length in the inside being 28 feet, and on the outside 40 feet. The height of the temple is 63 feet, and that of the porch 30 feet. A photograph of the temple is shown in plate XLI. Its scale, however, is too small to show to advantage the details of the temple. The plinth is deep, and of the pattern of the Great Tower, but the projections, carved out in the form of buttresses, look more like attached pillars than integral parts of the building. Each projection above the stylobate is carved into niches one above the other; then comes a series of mouldings formed of seven horizontal bands, and thereupon a spire, capped; with a flat dome and a pinnacle. The body of the spire is diversified by perpendicular ribs intersected by horizontal bands. The central projection on each side is the highest, having three lateral one on each flank. Of these lateral projections the middlemost is the highest, and of the two side ones, the outermost one being the lowest. The niches are filled with statues, each three feet high, and executed with great vigour and elegance, the subjects being men and women in various attitudes, some being obscene. One of them, closely resembling the statue of the Venus de Medici has been already noticed (*ante* Vol. I, p. [59]). The young lady engaged in writing something on a tablet (Fig. 117 of plate XXVI of Vol. I) is also from this temple. Others are mostly of the type common in the Great Tower; as also the rampant lines and elephants, which fill up the niches in the receding spaces between the buttresses. The floral bands round the niches and over horizontal mouldings are of the richest pattern, and several of these have been figured in the first volume (see plates, VIII, 17; IX, 18; X, 23 and XXXV, 145). Some of the brackets are also particularly handsome, and two of them have been figured in Vol. I (plate XV, fig. 40 and plate XXXVI, fig. 144). To describe and figure them all would require more space and a far greater number of illustrations than what I am in a position to devote to them. Suffice it to say that for elegance, beauty, and finish the temple affords one of the finest specimens of Orissan art, and is worthy of the highest consideration. It is to be regretted that vandalism has committed the greatest havoc in this beautiful and noble structure. As an unconsecrated temple, unprotected and uncared for, it has afforded to travellers a mine of statues and carved stones, and they have not failed to make the most of it. General Stewart and Colonel Mackenzie, I am sorry to add, have been the greatest sinners in this respect, for they carried away the largest number of statues, and, in the attempt to detach the statues, dismantled large portions of the niches, and sadly defaced the building. Some of the stones brought away by Colonel Stewart are now deposited in the Indian Museum.