The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.90

v2.c17.s1.90

Right in front of the porch is an archway or Toran, 15 feet high (plate XXXVII). It is supported on two columns of excellent and elaborate workmanship, totally unlike every other structure of the kind at Bhuvanéśvara. Over the arch there are two reclining female figures placed very like supporters in a coat-of-arms, or angelic figures shown on pediments in European architecture. As an ornamental appendage to the temple the archway is particularly graceful, but the people say it was erected not with that view. Though the presiding divinity of the temple is immovable, he is, by proxy of course, entertained, among others, with the swing festival, on which occasion a chair is hung by two iron rings fixed to the arch, and therein the image is placed and kept swinging, very much in the same way in which the Lord of the Universe celebrates the feast (*ante* p. [81]).