The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.68

v2.c18.68

The architectural argument in this extract I have already discussed in connexion with the Temple of Puri (*ante*, pp. [117] ff.). It is not of a character to justify the rejection of the *Temple Records*, which are for the period unquestionably contemporary, and therefore not open to doubt, and the only way to solve the difficulty appears to me to be the assumption that the informant of Abul Fazl confounded the date of the original temple which was erected when Koṇārak was appropriated to Hindu worship with the large temple subsequently erected by the Gangetic king, in rivalry with the builder of the Puri edifice. I have already shown that the details given by Abul Fazl are obviously incorrect, and an error of the kind I suggest was just what was most likely to happen. Under any circumstance I am not prepared to reject the positive statement of contemporary annals, and the testimony of the legend on the seal, on the authority of Abul Fazl, or on architectural deductions founded on insufficient data and moulded by preconceived theories.