History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c47.143

v2.c47.143

There are many temples in Orissa outside the beaten tract and many of them belonging to the time of the early and late Gaṅga kings. The country has not been properly surveyed as yet. Consequently plans and elevations of these are not available. Hence in dealing with the plastic art of Orissa one has to depend upon big centres like Bhuvaneśvara, Puri and Konarak. The *Mādaḷā Pāñji* informs us that the *Bhogamaṇḍapa* of the temple of Jagannātha at Puri was built by the Emperor Purushottama (1470-97). This is the only part of the Puri temple in which the ornamentations are still free from plaster and whitewash. In this building the exterior is as full of carvings and bas-reliefs as that on the *Jagamohana* of Konarak. Unfortunately no photographs have been taken of these decorations up till now. The carvings consist of two different classes of decorations; (i) free standing high reliefs depicting scenes mostly unidentified and (ii) decorations carved out of the body of the structure, such as Nāga pillars, female figures, geometrical patterns, etc. The former are in the same Chlorite as Konarak reliefs; but though they are in the same style, they lack the rude vigour of the 13th century art. The scenes depicted are partly incidents from the life of Kṛiṣhṇa and partly unknown. There are no labels on these reliefs as we find on some of the Konarak reliefs. In both of these classes the human figures, in many cases, are in a stilted unnatural pose and the more so in the case of the *Bhogamaṇḍapa*. The decorations on the southern side of this *Bhogamaṇḍapa* are now obscured by a later covered passage, leading from the kitchen as far as the *Nāṭamandir*. Some of the reliefs on this building have been described by the late Mr. Mano Mohan Ganguli.¹