The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.66

v2.c18.66

'Complete as this evidence, at first sight, appears, I have no hesitation in putting it aside, for the simple reason that it seems impossible—after the erection of so degraded a specimen of the art as the temple of Puri (A. D. 1174)—the style ever could have reverted to anything so beautiful as this. In general design and detail it is so similar to the Jaga-mohan of the great temple at Bhuvaneswar that at first sight I should be inclined to place it in the same century; but the details of the tower exhibit a progress towards modern forms which is unmistakable and render a difference of date of two or possibly of three centuries more probable. Yet the only written authority I know of for such a date is that given by Abul Fazl. After describing the temple and ascribing it to Raja Narsingh Deo, in A. D. 1241, with an amount of detail and degree of circumstantiality which has deceived every one, he quietly adds that it is said "to be a work of 730 years' antiquity". In other words, it was erected in A. D. 850 or A. D. 873, according to the date we assume for the composition of the *Ayeen Akbery*. If there were a king of that name among the *Rois faineants* of the Kesari line, this would suffice; but no such name is found in the lists. This, however, is not final; for in an inscription on the Brahmaneswar temple, the queen, who built it, mentions the names of her husband, Udyalaka, and six of his ancestors; but neither he nor any of them are to be found in the lists except the first, Janmejaya, and it is doubtful whether even he was a Kesari king or the hero of the *Mahābhārata*. In all this uncertainty we have really nothing to guide us but the architecture, and its testimony is so distinct that it does not appear to me doubtful that this temple really belongs to the latter half of the 9th century'²⁵.