The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.99

v2.c17.s1.99

**Parasuramesvara Temple**—The last temple of the group is Parasurāmeśvara. It stands at a distance of about 200 yards to the west of the tank, and in size and richness of detail is far superior to the other temples of the group. It is over 60 feet high, and is most elaborately sculptured all over. Its ground plan is a square, and the angles of the spire are left unchamfered, so the square character is preserved throughout. Its porch is oblong, and profusely covered with bas-reliefs representing processions of horses and elephants in the upper linear bands under the cornice, and scenes from the life of Rāma in the lower bands and panels. The roof is peculiar; it is formed of a sloping terrace, running along the middle of which is a clear-storey with a sloping roof crowned with a flat one in the middle. The clear-storey has a range of six windows in front, and twelve on each side (Plate XLVII). This plan of bringing light into the Mohan is unknown elsewhere in Bhuvaneśvara, except in the Mohan of the Vaitāl Deül, and seems to have been adopted more for its peculiarity and beauty than for light, inasmuch as the two doors on each side, and the one in front of the body of the porch, are quite sufficient to give it as much light as is desirable. It recalls to mind the clear-storey of Saxon churches, but as neither the Paraśurāmeśvara nor the Vaital Deül can be said to be of a later age than the 9th century, it cannot indicate a European paternity. It has obviously been borrowed from the Vihāra Halls of the Buddhists, who resorted to this plan of bringing light in some of their cave chapels; but done in masonry, the Hindu specimen is more elaborate and more artistically finished than what the Buddhists produced. I take the temple to be of the 9th century from the similitude of its workmanship and material with those of the Mukteśvara and the Rājarānī temples. In the *Ekāmra Purāṇa* the divinity of this temple occurs under the name of Daityeśvara, from the fact of Kīrti and Vāsa having, by order of Śiva, worshipped it first.