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380 AN EARLY HISTORY OF ORISSA (c) A left wing with closed verandah leading to a
small chamber to the left.
In front of the rooms are verandahs presenting four special features :
(1) At each end there is a guard carved in high relief. (2) A ledge of dressed rock forming a continuous
bench runs along the front of the rooms and the
side-walls of the verandahs. (3) Shelves are provided in the side walls in three of
the five verandahs. (4) The ceilings of the verandahs, which are but
seven feet high, are all supported on stout tapering pillars, square below and at the top, and octagonal in the middle.
Access to the rooms is obtained through small door. ways of which there are from one to three according to the size of the room. Each doorway has a groove cut all round its stone frame probably to take jhamp or bamboo shutter. As with most of the old caves in India, the doorways here have sloping jambs, making the entrances wider at the base than at the top. The chambers are 3 ft. 5 in. to 4 ft. 9 in. high and vary in length from 101 ft. to 21} ft. They are plain inside with low flat ceilings and the floor is raised at the inner end and shaped
this artifice on the part of the architects was a forced one and was demanded by the nature of the rock. If the upper storey were placed just over the lower one, the structure would not have stood for centuries. It would perhaps bave come down in the pourse of excavations because the rock is soft and also porous in texture.
But Shri Ganguli's objeotion is not tonable in view of the position of Svargapuri-Mañchapuri caves, where the latter stands right over the former. Refer also the Jayavijaya cave which stands just over the lower one.
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