199. Ruined Temple or Pagoda at Chillambaram. (From a Photograph.)
confessed this forest of granite pillars, each of a single stone, and all more or less carved and ornamented, does produce a certain grandeur of effect, but the want of design in the arrangement, and of subordination of parts, detract painfully from the effect that might have been produced. Leaving out the pillars in the centre is the one redeeming feature, and that could easily have been effected without the brick vaults, formed of radiating arches, which are employed here—another certain proof of the modern age of the building. These vaults are certainly integral, and as certainly could not have been employed till after the Mahomedans had settled in the south, and taught the Hindus how to use them.
Although this temple has been aggregated at different ages, and grown by accident rather than design like those at Tiruvalur and Seringham just described, it avoids the great defect of these temples, for though like them it has no tall central object to give dignity to the whole from the outside, internally the centre of its great court is occupied by a tank, round which the various objects are grouped without at all interfering with one another. The temple itself is one important object, to the eastward of it; the Parvati temple another, on the north, and forms a pleasing pendant to the 1000-columned choultrie on the south. Alongside the Parvati another temple was commenced ([Woodcut No. 199]), with a portico of square pillars, four in front, and all most elaborately ornamented, but in such a manner as not to interfere with their outline or solidity.
From its unfinished and now ruined state, it is not easy to say to whom this temple was dedicated—most probably Soubramanya—nor to feel sure of its age. From its position, however, and the character of its ornamentation, there seems little doubt that it belongs to the end of the 17th and first half of the 18th century. From its style, I would be inclined to ascribe it to the earlier date, but in that case it is difficult to understand its not being finished. When they had money to erect the great hall, and to commence a new enclosure, they might certainly have spared enough to complete this solitary shrine.
Ramisseram.
If it were proposed to select one temple which should exhibit all the beauties of the Dravidian style in their greatest perfection, and at the same time exemplify all its characteristic defects of design, the choice would almost inevitably fall on that at Ramisseram, in the island of Paumben ([Woodcut No. 200]). In no other temple has the same amount of patient industry been exhibited as here, and in none, unfortunately, has that labour been so thrown away for want of a design appropriate for its display. It is not that this temple has grown by successive increments like those last described; it was begun and finished on a previously settled plan, as regularly and as undeviatingly carried out as that at Tanjore, but on a principle so diametrically opposed to it, that while the temple at Tanjore produces an effect greater than is due to its mass or detail, this one, with double its dimensions and ten times its elaboration, produces no effect externally, and internally can only be seen in detail, so that the parts hardly in any instance aid one another in producing the effect aimed at.
200. Plan of Great Temple at Ramisseram. Scale 170 ft. to 1 in.