History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c46.141.3

v2.c46.141.3

Consequently we find cheap Bengali fresco-paintings, neither ancient nor modern, desecrating the interior of the Nāṭamandira, cheap glassware of the continent of Europe and, above all, modern plaster and whitewash. The roof of the Nāṭamandira is much lower than that of the Jagamohana on the east and the Bhogamaṇḍapa on the west. Whatever beauty this great hall once possessed has been totally destroyed on account of the standard ignorance of the Brāhmaṇa priests of the temple of Jagannātha and the general conservatism of the people of Orissa, which prevents any change. Whitewash, according to the Mādala Pāñji was applied to this great temple sometime in the late 18th century by one of the faineant Gajapatis of Khurda and consequently all literate and semi-literate priests of Jagannātha claim that originally this great temple was entirely covered with plaster and whitewash. Not only so, the remains of carvings of the exteriors of the Vimāna and the Jagamohana have also been filled up and the grosser obscenity of the double and treble erotic reliefs accentuated by the very injudicious application of different colours. There are two gates to the two compound walls in front of the eastern gateway of the Bhogamaṇḍapa. The gate of the inner enclosure is ornamented in the same style as the Bhogamaṇḍapa, but its construction cannot be earlier than the 17th or the 18th centuries, because the decorative motifs used in it are still further decadent. The outer gate, e.