The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.44

v2.c18.44

The porch has, as usual in Orissa, a single door on each side. The door is placed in the middle of the central bay, which projects nearly ten feet from the line of the wall. The western door is covered by the debris of the fallen temple on the outside, and that of the ceiling inside, and could not, therefore, be seen. The doors on the other three sides are very much alike, and, *mutatis mutandis*, the description of one applies to the other two. The most elaborately finished is the eastern gate which forms the main entrance to the chamber. It was originally flanked on each side by a polygonal pilaster, which was *in situ* in 1838 when Mr. Fergusson made his drawing, but I saw no trace of it. The broken face of the wall shown in Plate No. LVI. indicates the position it occupied. On its outer side there were two statues one over the other in a line with the niches in the wall. The left-hand side figures are still extant ; but those on the right side have been destroyed. The pilasters supported an iron beam 21 feet long with an average scantling of 1 to 8 inches (see Vol. 1. p. [36]) and over it was placed a heavy piece of stone 19 x 3 x 3 ft. This formed the architrave, and on its front were carved [153] in bas-relief the images of the nine planets. The top of the architrave was placed flush with the horizontal bands which form the upper tier of the fourfold division of the wall. In Mr. Fergusson's picture some bassi-rilievi are shown on the space between the top of the architrave and the cornice,¹³ but in my photograph the space appears all broken and dilapidated. In fact the fall of the side pilasters brought down the iron beam, the stone architrave and the sculptures above them. In some respect Mr. Fergusson’s picture appears to be a restoration and I am not certain, therefore, whether the side pilasters with their superstructure have fallen since 1838 or had tumbled before that date. At the close of 1868 the beam was lying in front of the temple and the stone architrave on a truck at a distance of above two hundred yards from it.