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

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The Structural Temples of Gujarat latter, rises a larger domed ceiling like that at the Miapuri Masjid at Somnatha, fashioned into concentric rings of mouldings, with brackets for twelve small images. The shrine has had a domical ceiling which has been built as an inner shell within the tower-walls, springing from a corbel table with the exception of fragment of one of the jambs, there is nothing left of the shrine door-way On a string course in the dome is carved a procession of men and battle scenes, and in one place, is a palanquin.
As is usual, the plan is designed with recesses and corners, and these, again are further picked out into smaller ones in the basement mouldings by divinding a square into 121 smaller ones, eleven on each side, and discarding ten squares in each corner, by a zigzag line accross the corner, the approximate shape of the periphery of the shrine, or hall is obtained. These offsets and recesses, running vertically up the face of the building, crossed and cut up, as they are with the deep horizontal mouldings, produce a pleasant but bewildering display of light and shade. This temple is a good example of correct disposition and proportional detail as laid down in the rules and regulations for temple building. The pillars are of the same type as those in the eleventh century temple of Sūrya at Modhera, the drawf ones around the margin of the hall having the water pot and foliage decoration so common through out Gujarat in temples of that period. 92
The temple of Varuņa Mahādeva at the village Varana (Kaccha) retains an old structure of the Garbhagriha, along with its sikhara and the Sabhāmaņdapa. 93 92. SMTK. pp. 57-58.
Dr. H. D. Sa:akalia inclines to place the Navalakha temple at Sejakpur, near in time to that of Ghumali and he does not believe that the former belonged to the 11th cent, as Cousens had placed it. On this anology, however, Shri M. A. Dhaky ascribes this temple to the reign of Siddharāja ( 1094-1144 A. D.) (CSTG. p. 54 ) 93. KSD. p. 181. Plts on p. 181.