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CHAPTER XII THE ARCHITECTURAL TREATMENT OF THE MANDOVARA.
(i) Treatment in the extant temples.
Over the solid substructure Pitha (basement) wall of the Prāsāda (shrine ) is raised on each side. The wall enclosing the shrine proper is either plain or ornate. In the former case it hardly takes mouldings except the cornices at the bottom and the top; in the latter case it carries several mouldings some of them being repeated once, twice or thrice.
In the case of temples having circumambulatory, the shrine is enclosed by two parallel walls plain or ornate.
The outer face of the walls is known as Maņdovara in Silpa texts. In its ornate phase it is decked with series of horizontal mouldings which follow either a fixed order or a varying order having additions, omissions and repetitions of certain mouldings. Like Pitha following the projections given to the ground plan of the shrine, it is broken up vertically into panels or facets, which run up from the bottom to the top i. e, upto the entablature.
The horizontal mouldings which are generally found carved on the ornate outerface or maņdovara of the temple are as follows from the bottom upwards; Khuraka, Kumbhaka, Kalaša, Kapotāli (Kevāla ), Mancikā, Jañgbā, Udagama, Bharaṇī, Śirāvați, Mabākevāla and Kūţachadya. Between two successive mouldings is carved a recess or antarapatra.
Kumbhaka is a broad band cut vertically and horizontally decorated with figures of niche-gods and goddesses and a morous couples. Kalasa iş a torus moulding often carved with
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