The Age of the Imperial Guptas c8.33

c8.33

The Early Gupta Temple was therefore, in type, a flat roofed sanctum, with a covered path for circumambulation, having an open porch in front decorated with pure Gupta motifs. It is not possible for us to determine how this type came to be copied in the 6th century A.D., at Badami; but the designs survived in the Malabar country, up to the end of the 16th century. On the Malabar coast, especially in the modern districts of North and South Kanara, square shrines, surrounded by one or more covered paths of circumambulation, have been discovered in very large numbers, from Mudabidri near Mangalore to Gersoppa and Bhatkal in the north. In the case of all of these temples, there is no *Śikhara* over the sanctum, but the excessive rainfall of the districts demanded that the slab-roof should be sloping instead of being flat. Hence the roofs of the sancta as well as the single or double paths of circumambulation are made of stone slabs, placed in a slanting position like tiled roofs of modern buildings. This particular type of temples resembles the Early Gupta Type in many particulars; *e.g.*, the want of a *Śikhara*, one or more covered paths of circumambulation, a small open porch in the centre of the *façade* and want of ornamentations on the exterior. These temples in the north and south Kanara district are Hindu and Jaina. The Jain temples are called *Bastis* and some of them contain big and elaborate establishments. The general decline of Jainism along the Malabar coast has caused the desertion of many of these *Bastis*, but due to the munificence of the Vijayanagara emperors and the chiefs of Sugandhā or Sonda, the majority of Hindu temples are in a much better state of preservation, comparatively. The example of the great Jaina *Basti* at Bhatkal in the extreme south of the North Kanara district of the Bombay Presidency may be cited. In this case the roof of the sanctum, the path of circumambulation and the porch are all sloping and constructed of long thick plain slabs of stone finely dove-tailed and placed on heavy stone beams. The exterior is severely plain but the interior shows an amazing mass of decorative carving of the south Indian type which is quite different from the decadent Hoyśala motifs of Hampe, Penukonda, Chandragiri and Udayagiri. Another feature of these Malabar temples is that in the majority of cases they are built on stone piles, having empty spaces under the floors. There is a lamp post (*dīpa-stambha*) in each of them, which is a monolithic pillar surmounted by a stone lantern, standing apart from the building. The sloping roofs of the Jaina *Basti* of Bhatkal decrease gradually in height; the roof of the sanctum being the highest, next to it comes that of the first path of circumambulation, then comes the second path of circumambulation, while that of the porch is the lowest. It is impossible at the present day to find out how the Early Gupta-Temple-type came to survive in a modified form in the extreme south-west of the Indian peninsula and survived there for eleven centuries after the Gupta period. Some links have been discovered recently in the country between East Central India and the Malabar Coast. Though these links possess *Śikharas*, their plan consists of a small *Garbha-gṛha* enclosed by a covered path of circumambulation. Such are the temples of Samgameśvara, Mallikārjuna ¹ and Virupāksha ² at Pattadkal in the Bijapur district of the Bombay Presidency. A similar arrangement exists in the Meguti temple¹, the Huchchimalli-gudi², temple No. 9³ at Aihole and in the two temples at Mahākūṭa⁴ in the same district. The second link is to be found in the group of Chandella temples at Khajuraho in the Chhattarpur State near Nowgong, slightly S.S.W. of Bhumra and Nachna Kuthara. In the Khajuraho temples, in one or two cases, a small passage has been left between the *Garbha-gṛha* and the three *Ardha-maṇḍapas* on three sides of it.