A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c8.119

c8.119

The best-known example is the temple of Mārttānda or Mārtand—a local name of Vishnu as the Sun-god—which was erected about the middle of the eighth century by Lalitāditya (A. D. 724-60), the most powerful sovereign of Kashmīr. This building, although the largest of its kind, is of modest dimensions, being a rectangle measuring 60 feet long by 38 feet wide. The width of the façade, however, is increased to 60 feet by the addition of wings, and the walled enclosure measures internally 220 by 142 feet. The colonnade lining the wall is composed of eighty-four pillars, with intervening niches surmounted by the trefoil arches and triangular pediments or gables characteristic of the style. The cell, or chapel, which occupied the centre of each face of the enclosure, originally reached a height of about 30 feet. All the roofs have disappeared completely, so that it is uncertain whether they were of wood or stone.