________________
OCTOBER, 1916] THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA.
guarantee against the action of time. Being structures of hard stone, the towers are plain and unadorned by any of the sculptures or stucco figures and pilasters, which generally bedeck the pyramidal storeys of brick and chunam. Another remarkable feature about them is their incompleteness, except in the case of the western tower. The North and South towers, in fact, rise hardly higher than the walls on which they stand, and are, in consequence called ruined gateways. On the eastern side there are, unlike on the other sides, two towers, of which one is far larger than the other. If completed, says Fergusson, "this tower would have been one of the largest of this class, and being wholly in stone and consequently without its outline being broken by sculpture, it would have reproduced more nearly an Egyptian propylon than any other example of its class in India." As it is, the external appearance of the temple is, as Mr. Bruce Foote says, the least imposing. The best view of it is obtained from a craft in the open sea half a mile from land, but even the best view is not picturesque. The lowness and squatness of the towers lends no enchantment to even a distant view, while nearer, it is hardly better, in consequence of the small blocks of ugly and dirty coloured, "calcareous sandstone" with which they are built. 90
163
While the external appearance is so ineffective, the temple is a paradise of art in its interior. Its glory is in the corridors which surround the inner sanctuary. The total of their length amounts to 7,000 feet. Their breadth varies from twenty to thirty feet, and their height is about 30 feet. Their beauty lies in their great length and the wonderful perspective of the lines, which very nearly meet in a true vanishing point. The central corridor is 2,700 feet long, and has a series of pillars of an extraordinarily rich and elaborate design. On these pillars stand the life-like portraits of the Setupatis on one side, and the Dalavâis on the other. The transverse galleries and side corridors are narrower, and have fewer sculptures, in Fergusson's opinion, less vulgar and more pleasing. Throughout these structures the immensity of labour that has been displayed is something marvellous and apparently superhuman. There is, moreover, as Fergusson says, a certain mystery and picturesqueness which imparts a charm to the place; and though, as Bruce Foote maintains, much of the beauty has been marred by the poor nature of the stone employed, and though the quality of the work is, when compared with the Chalukyan temple of Halebid, inferior from the artistic standpoint, yet the unrivalled exuberance of fancy and enthusiasm of labour employed therein, together with the halo of mystery and solemnity which pervades it, leave it unsurpassed by any other temple in South India, and by very few elsewhere. Nature has been, in short, overcome by man, and "out of the way on unapprochable spot" has been converted by human faith and human labour into the classic ground of religion and the most extensive resort of pilgrims.
It is not in religious architecture alone that Tirumal Naik's name is distinguished. The people of South India, great builders as they have been from the dawn of history, have not left any civil, municipal, or other secular buildings, which can be traced to the pre-Mussalman period. Secular architecture must have of course existed, but it has perished. "What is however even more remarkable," says Fergusson, "is that kingdoms
90 I examined a great many of the great corridor pillars, and wherever the gaudy, trumpery, colourwash with which they have been overlaid allowed of the recognition of their true nature, found them to consist of rather coarse shelly sandstone" (Bruce Foote, Christian College Magazine, Vol. VII). The place from which these masses of stone were brought is not known. Mr. Foote believes it to be Valimukham Bay, 46 miles south-west of the Ramnad coast, where similar quarries are even now seen, and from which they must have been taken to the temple by the sea. Christian College Magazine, VII.
