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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[SEPTEMBER, 1916
mony which existed between the Nâik and the Sêtupati conduced to co-operation in art, and the corridors of the Ramcśvaram temple are imitations, though with certain alterations of the Pudu Mantapam. The cost of the Maclura hall was about a million sterling and, according to the estimation of the present day when money is cheap, would be equal to four or five millions sterling.
Immediately in front of the choultry the Náik monarch built a gopura, which he was not able to finish, and his successors were too poor or unwilling to continue. There is a melancholy grandeur about this stupendous monument. In its gigantic size, and its bold design, it is far more imposing than the Śrîrangam tower iteelf. If completed, says Fergusson, it would be the finest edifice of its class in South India. It is 174 feet long from north to south, about 100 feet in height, with an entrance 22 feet wide, and doorposts rising to a height of 60 feet. The dimensions of the tower are therefore larger than those of the Srirangam edifice. But it is not the size alone that makes it an object of superior admiration. The beauty of dotails is far more engaging and attractive. The gateposts, each of which is a single block of. granite, the lifting and planting of which would have involved a tremendous labour and required high mechanical skill, are carved with the most exquisite scroll of patterns of elaborate foliage. "Being unfinished and consequently never consecrated, it has escaped white tash, and alone of all the buildings of Madura, its beauties can still be admired in their original perfection."
The next important religious alifice of Tirumal Naik is the great temple of Minâkshi. The heart of the temple, the holy sanctuary, was built by Visvanatha86, but the outer buildings and ornamentations are the work of Tirumal Naik. It is not unlikely that the beginning of the outer edifices was made in the reign of Muttu Virappa, Tirumal's brother and predecessor. A mantapam in fact goes even now in his name and is said by tradition to be the oldest part. But the major portion of the works were carried out in the reign87 of Tirumal Naik between the years 1025 and 1659. The temple has not attracted as much attention from the artistic world as the choultry; but in Fergusson's opinion, it is a larger and more important building with all the characteristics of a first class Dravidian temple. It is nearly a regular rectangle, two of the sides mensuring 720 and 729 feet, and the other two 834 and 852 feet. It possesses four gopuras of the first class and five smaller ones ; & very beautiful tank surrounded by archades, and a hall of 1,000 columns whose sculptures surpass those of any other hall of its class I am acquainted with. There is a small shrine dedicated to the goddess Minâ kshi, the tutelary cleity of the place, which occupies the space of fifteen columns, so the real number is only 985; but it is not their number, but their marvellous elaboration, that make it the wonder of the place, and renders it, in some respects, more remarkable than the choultry about which so much has been said and written. I do not feel sure that this hall alone is not a greater work than the choultry; taken in conjunction with the other buildings of the temple, it certainly forms a far more imposing group."
(To be continued.)
85 The MSS. say that it absorbed one lakh of pona (£20,000). Nelson takes this view, As labour was very cheap in those days. But it seems to me that Mr. Fergusson's opinion is the more correct one. See also J.R. A. S. III p. 231.
86 Ind. and E. Arch. Bu Sewell points out that some parts were much older. See his Antiquities, I, p. 291.
87 The Kalyana Maptapa and Tatta Suddhi are later buildings. The former was built in 1707 and the latter in 1770 A. D. The Yali façades, the statues of Virabhadra and the Goddess, of Subrahmanya and Sarasvati (playing on Vina), and other features of the grand hall are admirable.
