The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.60.1

v2.c18.60.1

The testimony of Dr. W. W. Hunter is also worthy of note. He says, 'The most exquisite memorial of sun worship in India, or I believe in any country, is the temple of Konarak upon the Orissa shore. It concentrates in itself the accumulated beauties of the four architectural centuries among the Hindus. Notwithstanding the indecent sculptures which disgrace its exterior wall, it forms the climax of Bengal art and wrung an unwilling tribute even from the Muhammadans'²¹. Referring to the tact and talent of the artists, he observes: 'Sculptures in high relief, exquisitely cut, but of an indecent character, cover the exterior walls and bear witness to an age when Hindu artists worked from nature. The nymphs are beautifully shaped women, in luscious attitudes; the elephants move along at the true elephant trot and kneel down in stone exactly as they did in life. Some of the latter have, however, the exaggerated ear and conventional mouth of modern Hindu sculpture and the lions must have been altogether evolved from the artists' inner consciousness'²². 'They handled their colossal beams of iron and stone with as much ease and plasticity as modern workmen put up pine-rafters; and fitted in blocks of twenty to thirty tons with absolute precision at a height of eighty feet'. 'Among the life-sized pieces, elephants crouch in terror under rampant lions, while mutilated human figures lie crushed beneath the flat pulpy feet of the elephants.