Narayan Prasad Deo Sahib told us that there is another collection of broken images at a distance but we could not spare the time to see them. The temples at Gandharaḍi and Baudh town now enable us to fix the evolution of the Orissan temple type with more exactness. The earliest mediaval temple type of Orissa is represented by the Parasurameś vara and the twin temples at Gandharāḍi. If the Parasuramesvara is placed tentatively at the middle of the 8th then the twin temples at Gandbaraḍi have to be placed at the end of that century. The Parasurameśvara cannot be very far removed in date from the post-Gupta temple of the Daśāvatāra at Deogadh in the Jhansi district. The low regularly curving outlines of the temple at Gandharāḍi and Parasurameśvara belong to the same type as the Sikharas of the Deogadh temple and the later temple at Nachana Kuthara. Some time during the course of the 9th century A.D., temple types in Orissa began to change and the Sikhara grew taller. It was at this time that the curve of the spire became abrupt near the Amalaka. The only known examples of this type are the three small temples in Baudh town. They are certainly older than the Lingarāja group at Bhuvanesvara because the large Jagamohana had not yet come into vogue. I examined the Vimāna and the Jagamohana very minutely when the Lingarāja temple was being repaired under my supervision in 1925-1926 and found that like the Vimana and Jagamohana of the great temple at Puri, those of the Lingarāja group belong to the same date. The Lingaraja temple and the temple of Parvati, so far as their Vimanas and Jagamohanas are concerned, are, therefore, much later than the Parasurameśvara and the twin temples at Gandharaḍi and slightly later than the three temples in Baudh town. 1 For a discussion of the earliest Brahmanical temples and the beginning of the Sikhara in North Indian Temple Architecture, see Modern Review, January 1929, pp. 52-61. . Progress Report of the Archeological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year ending 31st March 1919, Pl. XVII. |