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 345

The Structural Temples of Gujarat
composition of the Gop temple, followed also in several other monuments of the region evidently of this class, are the situation of the sanctum within a covered ambulatory and the stepped arrangement of the roof. Of the first a parallel may be recognised in the plan of what has been designated as the storeyed type of Gupta temples. Shri S. K. Sarasvati observes on this analogy the stepped arrangment of the roof in the Gop temple may, perhaps, be considered as but a slightly different expression of the storeyed conception of the superstructure in the Gupta temple. According to him the bold and emphatic steps in the roof of the temple at Gop resemble, though in a less pronounced manner, the stories in receding stages, characterstic of composition of the roof in the Gupta temple and lend a plausibility to the suggestion made above. The appearance of Caitya arches as gables on the roof is very old and may be traced back to the days of Bharhut.7
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Cousens has further noticed certain analogous features in the temple at Gop and in what he describes as "early Dravidian temples at Aihole and Pattadakal; " but he regards them as 'purely accidental.' However, such analogous are of greater import with regard to the affiliations of the Gop temple, particularly in the view of the fact that an almost identical plan also characterises the early temples of the Deccan.
Shri K, V. Soundara Rajan. 9 upholds that the temple of Gop is basically a combination of the stepped pyramidal shape of the indegeneous Chalukyan sub-order with the ornamental Caitya window motif, being in existence in all early decorative devices to religious structures; and it differs radically from the gable type by the absence of the zig-zag and over-hanging
7. S. E. pp. 584-585.
8. SMTK. P. 6-7.
9.
Architectural affiliation of early Saurastra temples' IHQ. xxxvii, No. 1 p. 5.