The Colas c35.36

c35.36

As in the upper storeys of the *vimāna* the verticality of perpendicular walls and niches of the *garbhagṛha* is relieved by powerful horizontal members—the heavy *kumuda* moulding of the pediment, and the massive overhanging cornices of the two storeys. These vertical walls enclose a shrine chamber 45 feet square with a narrow circumambulatory passage 9 feet wide round it. The inner wall of the cella repeats the features of the outside with large central bay-niches enshrining sculptures and lighted by rectangular openings (doorways) on the outer wall, the openings being walled up later perhaps in the Nāyak period. These rubble walls have now been removed. It is in this circumambulatory, tucked away beneath the *vimāna* round the *garbhagṛha*, that the now well-known Cōḷa frescoes were discovered about 1930. The cella enshrines an enormous *linga* which with its pedestal nearly covers the height of both the storeys (as seen from outside) of the *garbhagṛha*.