Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/209

Rh one of the side posts of the door or entrance is still standing close to the architrave, and apparently in its original position; on it is sculptured the fig. ६; behind, and to its west, lie the ruins of a large stone temple; this temple, therefore, also faced east, and consisted, like the one described, of a single cell, surmounted by a tower roof; the sculpture, or rather the mouldings of the temple, were, judging from the remains, shallow.

To the north of the first brick temple is a smaller one resembling it; the carving and mouldings are here more elaborate; the temple is now plastered and whitewashed, but I consider the plaster to be a later, and probably a very recent, addition; this inference I draw from the circumstance that the ornamentation executed in the plaster coat does not in all parts correspond to the ornamentation cut in the brick below; this last is plainer, but bolder, and therefore of an earlier age; there is, however, no lack of delicate and minute sculpture, although not so profuse or elaborate as in the plaster-coating: an instance of the discrepancy between the sculpture on the brick face and on the plaster coat is to be seen in a row of lotus, &c., flowers. In the brick the centre of the scroll work is a fine delicately executed eight-leaved lotus, while in the plaster coating the lotus is replaced by a tulip-shaped flower: in front of the remains of the sanctum stand the lower stumps of a number of pillars of plain pattern; these were evidently the supports of the roof of the mahamandapa, which once existed; but though a mahamandapa existed, it is clear, from the façade of the sanctum, that the temple as originally built consisted solely of the cell, the mahamandapa having been subsequently added; and this view is rendered almost certain by the circumstance, that the stumps of the pillars show that they were taken from other stone temples, of which several once existed, and which have left, as proofs of their existence, a number of mounds.

Near this, and to the north of the second ruined stone temple, and in line with it and with the first brick temple, is the ruin of another stone temple; the material and ornamentation are similar to those in the other temple; the cell exists entire and is 8½ feet square. So much of its entrance as still exists shows it to have been of the usual type of a rectangle, surmounted by a triangle, the diminution being effected by overlapping the courses of stones.