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Structural Temples after the end of the Caulukyan Period 235
Shri Dhaky commences the Solanki style with the reign of Bhimadeva I ( 1022-1066 A. D.), assinging the period of Malarāja I (942-997 A. D.) and other predecessors (997-1022 A. D.) to what he styles The Turning Point'. Under this group he introduces the Ādinātha temple at Vadnagar in addition to the known extant monuments of this period. The older portions of the Adinātha temple are assigned by him to the last quarter of the 10th cent., while the later portions, including the Sikhara and Gūdhamandapa, are put in the 13th cent. A. D. Moreover he holds that Mūlarāja probably built a large and superb temple of Somanātha at Prabhasa and the large Hāțekeśvara temple at Vadnagar. But these are both assumptions which contain incongruity with the known facts. As for the temple of Somanātha, the early phases mentioned in the Solanki inscriptions contain no reserence to Mūlarāja. Nor does the successive strata of structure unearthed in the excavations conducted by Shri Thapar in 1950 reveal any phase intermediate between the early phase of the Maitraka period and the next phase of the reign of Bhimadeva 1. The assumed association ot Hatakeśvara temple with Mūlarāja also hardly seems convincing. He remarks that the original temple was of Latina class like Rāņakadevi temple at Wadhwan but he does not specify how the Veņukoşa of the Mūlaman jari gives a clue to the nature of its “ikhara and the date of its construction.
Shri Dhaky attributes the Solanki style to a synthesis of the indigenous Gujarat elements and the elements adopted from Rajasthan, and corroborates it by citing the circumstances of the increased contacts with Rajasthan. The cultural contacts between Gujarat and Rajasthan no doubt received an impetus during the period of the Solanki kings, but the evolution of the form of the temple architecture in Gujarat even during the pre-Solanki period also reflects some elements found in the early temple of Rajasthan. In facts, Gujarat and Rajasthan seem to have evolved almost a common form of art and architecture known as the Western school, i. e. the school of Western India.
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