Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/137

 CHAP. II. PURL 109 coming from the Dekhan, would naturally adopt the leading features of the temples of their native province in preference even to the best traits of the earlier structures. The style would thus be an intrusion breaking in upon the Orissan style. Even Stirling, who was no captious critic, remarks that it seems unaccountable, in an age when the architects obviously possessed some taste and skill, and were in most cases particularly lavish in the use of sculptural ornament, so little pains should have been taken with the decoration and finishing of this sacred and stupendous edifice. 1 It is not in the detail which, however, is seriously obscured by the plasterings applied during the last two or three centuries, but the outline, the proportions, and arrangements of the temple, show that the art in this province had received a downward impetus at the time. As will be seen from the annexed plan 2 (Woodcut No. 319), this temple has a double enclosure, a thing otherwise unknown in the north. Externally it measures 670 ft. by 640 ft, and is surrounded by a wall 20 ft. to 30 ft. high, with four gates. The inner enclosure measures 420 ft. by 3 1 5 ft., and is enclosed by a double wall with four openings. Within this last stands the Bar^-Dewal, A, measuring 80 ft. across the centre, or 5 ft. more than the great temple at Bhuvane^war ; with its porch or Jagamohan, B, it measures 155 ft. east and west, while the great tower rises to a height of 192 ft. 3 Beyond this two other porches were afterwards added, the Nata-mandir, C, and Bhoga- mandir, D, making the whole length of the temple about 300 ft., or as nearly as may be the same as that at Bhuvane^war. Besides this there are, as in all great Hindu temples, numberless smaller shrines within the two enclosures, but, as in all instances in the north, they are kept subordinate to the principal one, which here towers supreme over all. Except in its double enclosure, and a certain irregularity of plan, this temple does not differ materially in arrangement from the great ones at Bhuvane^war and elsewhere ; but besides the apparent want of detail already remarked upon, the outline of its vimana is quite devoid either of that solemn solidity of the earlier examples, or the grace that characterised those sub- sequently erected ; and when we add to this that whitewash and paint have done their worst to add vulgarity to forms already sufficiently ungraceful, it will easily be understood that this, the most famous, is also the most disappointing of northern Hindu 1 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. xv. p. 315. 2 The plan is reduced from one to a scale of 40 ft. to I inch, made by an intelligent native assistant to the Public Works Department, named Rddhica Pra- sad Mukerji, and is the only plan I ever found done by a native sufficiently correct to be used, except as a diagram, or after serious doctoring. 3 Hunter, ' Orissa,' vol. i. p. 128.