The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.37

v2.c18.37

**The Audience Hall.** The Jagamohan or Audience Hall is the only portion of the temple now in existence in its entirety: it passes under the name of the Black Pagoda. It is a square building of 66 feet a side, with a twofold projection on each side. In this respect the Koṇārak Jagamohan is different from the Puri and the Bhuvaneśvara examples. The latter are, as already shown, so broken by a multiplicity of buttress-like projections and receding angles that the original quadrangular character of their ground plan is not at all perceptible to the eye, whereas here the square form is prominently and obtrusively apparent (see Plate LVI and compare with Plate LIV). Mr. Stirling notices the square ground-plan, but adds, ‘If we take in the four projecting doorways, it should rather be called a cross’;¹¹ but the double projections on each side cannot strictly be so designated. The projections are comparatively slight and barely sufficient to break the monotony of the flat walls without disturbing their general character. The plinth is high, about 7 feet, and forms a berm all round the building; but rubbish and broken stones have so accumulated all round that I could not ascertain the way in which it had been ornamented. Its existence is indicated by a flight of nine steps on the east side by which access is had to the top of the berm. Similar flights, unquestionably existed on the north and the south sides; but they are, except in a few places, now buried under rubbish. Above the berm there is a base moulding formed of a tile one foot thick, over it a deep cyma engraved on the upper surface in the form of lotus petals and thereupon a thin receding tile. The walls over this plinth are diversified by niches formed by flat pilasters and divided into two tiers by a broad flat-ribbed band which goes all round the building and gives to the whole the appearance of two storeys. Taking into account the plinth and the bands which lie on the upper row of niches, people generally describe the building as four-storeyed.