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YAŠASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
to the chamber immediately above the garbhagrha, the edifice has not suffered any damage or structural alteration during the nine hundred years that have elapsed since it was built. The temple is in use, and worship is still carried on there on an elaborate scale. Io the north of the temple of Siddhanātha is an unfinished temple of Vişnu, of which only the garbhagyha stands.
The large temple of Bhojeśvara is situated at Bhojpur twenty miles to the south of the city of Bhopal. It appears to be named after the great Paramāra king Bhoja, and has been assigned to the eleventh or twelfth century A. D. In plan the building is a simple square; and an incomplete but richly carved dome is supported by four massive pillars, each of which is 40 feet in height. Inside the building stands a colossal linga, seven and a half feet high and more than seventeen feet in circumference, on a platform made of three superimposed blocks of sand-stone.'
An important group of Saiva temples, fairly well-preserved, exists in the large township of Un in the Nimar District of Indore State. It has been said that with the exception of Khajurāho in central India, there is no other place in Northern India where so many ancient temples are still to be found intact. The carvings on the temples at Un are slightly less elaborate than those on the celebrated temples of Khajurāho, but in all other respects they would compare very favourably with the Khajuraho group. There are at least seven temples of Siva of which the largest is called Chaubara Dera. It has an elaborately carved magnificent mandapa with a large porch in the front and two small ones on the sides. The mandapa is supported by four round carved pillars, and the dome over it is richly carved in the style of the domes of the marble temple of Vastupāla Tejahpāla on Mount Abu. The group of buildings includes a large temple of Siva called Mahākāleśvara and another of the same name. The Siva temple of Vallaleśvara appears to have been rebuilt at a later date when a round dome like that of a mosque was built in place of the sikhara. A beautifully carved temple of Siva called Nilakantheśvara stands inside the modern village, and close to it is a small underground temple of Siva called Gupteśvara. The shrine, of which only a small underground chamber remains, must have been originally below the ground level, as the level of the floor of the garbhagrha is about thirty feet below the level of the floor of the sanctum in the temple of Nilakantheśvara.'
ater date whe, Siva templava called Mahount Abu.
1 Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year
ending 318t March, 1921, pp. 98-106. 2 Ganguly: History of the Paramāra Dynasty, p. 270. 3 Progress Report of the Archacological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year
ending 31st March, 1919, pp. 61-64. Plates. XVIII-XXI. A temple dedicated to Siva under the name of Mäkäleśvara (Mahakülosivara) also exists in the village of Makla in the Mehidpur District of Indore State. This district lies in the centre of Mālava and is very close to Ujjain. The mandapa of the temple has been rebuilt, but the garbhagyha is intact, and provides a good example of Hindu temple architecture of the 11th and 12th centuries in Mälva. Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, Western Circle, 1920. p. 101.
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