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CAVE ARCHITECTURE IN ORISSA
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pillars. On the brackets are carved elephants and lotus inside and horsemen outside, while the pillars are each ornamented with a squatting yaksha on the outer face and standing female figure on the inner.
The verandah commands an open spacious courtyard in front which was probably used as a meeting place for the monks and the devotees. The Rāni Gumphā
A further stage in the developmeift of the architecture in the Udayagiri-Khaņdagiri, according to Cunningham, is reached in the Rāni Gumphā, also called Rāni kā Nūr or Rājarāni or the Qneen's Palace. It is the largest, most spacious and elaborately. carved cave of the entire group. It is the eastern-most cave of the Udayagiri group. It contains a two-storeyed monastry occupying three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth or the south-eastern side being open. In the lower storey are :(a) A main gallery with three rooms facing south-east
and one facing south-west. (b) A left wing with one room on each side except
the north-east. (c) A right wing with one room facing south-west.
The upper range of rooms is not placed immediately over the lower one, as has been noticed in the Svargapuri. Mañchapuri caves, but on the rocky mass behind. It contains :
(a) A main gallery with four rooms. (b) A right wing with one room. 1. CHI, Ch. XXVI, p. 640.
2. Drs. Furgusson and Burgess (Cave Temples of India, p. 78) opine that the set back was adopted in order to give the structure a pyramidal form- & characteristic of the Buddbist viharas. M. M. Ganguli (OHR, p. 40) bowever objects to the abova and states that
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