Structural Temples of Gujarat

SR No.: 006728
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kantilal F Sompura
Publisher: Gujarat University Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 868
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 31 MB

Page 169

The Structural Temples of Gujarat
The Ambā Mātā temple at Anjar (Kaccha) and the adjoining math (or monestery) are built of fragments of older temples. To a room over the enclosure gateway is a door of hard reddish stone, carved all round, which, from the repetition of Devi on the jambs and lintels may have belonged to a Vaisṇava Śākta temple.50 The style of the carving places the temple in 10th cent. A. D,51
114
Kotai (Kaccha) has several ruined temples of perhaps the earlier part of the 10th cent. A. D.
The temple dedicated Śiva, is built of the yellowish and red stone used also at Kheda, and is roofed in a peculiar way.51/1 The aisles are covered by a sort of groins, like the side aisles in some Caitya-caves; the nave is roofed in the same way as at the Amarnatha temple-at Kalayan, the central area being covered with massive slabs hollowed out in the centre, in which a pendentive has been inserted. Outside it has a slanting roof divided into four sections of slightly different heights that next to the spire being the highest, and the remote end the lowest; each section is terminated by a neatly carved gable end, 52
The porch has long since fallen away. The door of the temple has been neatly carved with the nine grahas or patrons
50. AKK. p. 210 plt. LXI Fig. 2.
51. Kumara, Nos. 242, 243 pp. 41-44.
*North to the shores of Kaccha Rana.
51/1. Cousens represented this temple as dedicated to Sun. (AKK. p. 214) But the decription given by him applies to the Śiva temple situated at the adjoining site of Angorgadh. There was a Sun temple in its vicinity but it is in a completely ruinous condition since long. Probably Cousens misascribed the account of extant Śiva temple to the extinct Sun temple.
52. AKK. p. 214-215 Plts. LXIV; KSD. Plts. facing pp. 128-129. Here Figs. 70-73.