236. Doorway in Raj Rani Temple. (From a Photograph.)
Graha, or nine planets, which are almost more universal, both in temples dedicated to Vishnu and in those belonging to the worship of Siva. Indeed, in so far as any external signs are concerned, there does not seem to be any means by which the temples of the two religions can be distinguished from one another. Throughout the province, from the time we first meet it, about A.D. 500, till it dies out about A.D. 1200, the style seems to be singularly uniform in its features, and it requires considerable familiarity with it to detect its gradual progress towards decay. Notwithstanding this, it is easy to perceive that there are two styles of architecture in Orissa, which ran side by side with one another during the whole course. The first is represented by the temples of Parasurameswara and Mukteswara (Woodcuts No. [230], [231]); the second by the great temple ([Woodcut No. 233]). They are not antagonistic, but sister styles, and seem certainly to have had at least partially different origins. We can find affinities with that of the Mukteswara group in Dharwar and most parts of northern India: but I know of nothing exactly like the great temple anywhere else. It seems to be quite indigenous, and if not the most beautiful, it is the simplest and most majestic of the Indo-Aryan styles. It may look like riding a hobby to death, but I cannot help suspecting a wooden origin for it—the courses look so much more like carved logs of wood laid one upon another than courses of masonry, and the mode and extent to which they are carved certainly savours of the same material. There is a mosque built of Deodar pine in Kashmir, to be referred to hereafter, which certainly seems to favour this idea; but till we find some older temples than any yet discovered in Orissa this must remain in doubt. Meanwhile it may be well to point out that about one-half of the older temples in Orissa follow the type of the great temple, and one-half that of Mukteswara; but the two get confounded together in the 8th and 9th centuries, and are mixed together into what may almost be called a new style in the Raj Rani and temples of the 10th and 11th centuries.
Kanaruc.
With, perhaps, the single exception of the temple of Juganât at Puri, there is no temple in India better known and about which more has been written than the so-called Black Pagoda at Kanaruc; nor is there any one whose date and dedication is better known, if the literature on the subject could be depended upon. Stirling does not hesitate in asserting that the present edifice, “as is well known, was built by the Raja Langora Narsingh Deo, in A.D. 1241, under the superintendence of his minister Shibai Sautra;”[424] and every one who has since written on the subject adopts this date without hesitation,[425] and the native records seem to confirm it. Complete as this evidence, at first sight, appears, I have no hesitation in putting it aside, for the simple reason that it seems impossible—after the erection of so degraded a specimen of the art as the temple of Puri (A.D. 1174)—the style ever could have reverted to anything so beautiful as this. In general design and detail it is so similar to the Jagamohan of the great temple at Bhuvaneswar that at first sight I should be inclined to place it in the same century; but the details of the tower exhibit a progress towards modern forms which is unmistakeable,[426] and render a difference of date of two or possibly even three centuries more probable. Yet the only written authority I know of for such a date is that given by Abul Fazl. After describing the temple, and ascribing it to Raja Narsingh Deo, in A.D. 1241, with an amount of detail and degree of circumstantiality which has deceived every one, he quietly adds that it is said “to be a work of 730 years’ antiquity.”[427] In other words, it was erected in A.D. 850 or A.D. 873, according to the date we assume for the composition of the Ayeen Akbery. If there were a king of that name among the Rois fainéants of the Kesari line, this would suffice; but no such name is found in the lists.[428] This, however, is not final; for in an inscription on the Brahmaneswar temple the queen, who built it, mentions the names of her husband, Udyalaka, and six of his ancestors; but neither he nor any of them are to be found in the lists except the first, Janmejaya, and it is doubtful whether even he was a Kesari king or the hero of the ‘Mahabharata.’[429] In all this uncertainty we have really nothing to guide us but the architecture, and its testimony is so distinct that it does not appear to me doubtful that this temple really belongs to the latter half of the 9th century.
Another point of interest connected with this temple is, that all authors, apparently following Abul Fazl, agree that it was like the temple of Marttand, in Kashmir (ante, p. 287), dedicated to the sun. I have never myself seen a Sun temple in India, and being entirely ignorant of the ritual of the sect, I would not wish to appear to dogmatise on the subject; but I have already expressed my doubts as to the dedication of Marttand, and I may be allowed to repeat them here. The traces of Sun worship in Bengal are so slight that they have escaped me, as they have done the keen scrutiny of the late H. H. Wilson.[430]
In the Vedas it appears that Vishnu is called the Sun, or it may be the sun bears the name of Vishnu;[431] and this may account, perhaps, for the way in which the name has come to be applied to this temple, which differs in no other respect from the other temples of Vishnu found in Orissa. The architectural forms are identical; they are adorned with the same symbols. The Nava Graha, or nine planets, adorn the lintel of this as of all the temples of the Kesari line. The seven-headed serpent-forms are found on every temple of the race, from the great one at Bhuvaneswar to this one, and it is only distinguishable from those of Siva by the obscenities that disfigure a part of its sculptures. This is, unfortunately only too common a characteristic of Vaishnava temples all over India, but is hardly, if ever, found in Saiva temples, and never was, so far as I know, a characteristic of the worship of the Sun god.
Architecturally, the great beauty of this temple arises from the form of the design of the roof of the Jagamohan, or porch—the only part now remaining. Both in dimensions and detail, it is extremely like that of the great temple at Bhuvaneswar, but it is here divided into three storeys instead of two, which is an immense improvement, and it rises at a more agreeable angle. The first and second storeys consist of six cornices each, the third of five only, as shown in the diagram Woodcut No. 124. The two lower ones are carved with infinite beauty and variety on all their twelve faces, and the antefixæ at the angles and breaks are used with an elegance and judgment a true Yavana could hardly have surpassed. There is, so far as I know, no roof in India where the same play of light and shade is obtained with an equal amount of richness and constructive propriety as in this instance, nor one that sits so gracefully on the base that supports it.
Internally, the chamber is singularly plain, but presents some constructive peculiarities worthy of attention. On the floor it is about 40 ft. square, and the walls rise plain to about the same height. Here it begins to bracket inwards, till it contracts to about 20 ft., where it was ceiled with a flat stone roof, supported by wrought-iron beams—Stirling says nine, nearly 1 ft. square by 12 ft. to 18 ft. long.[432] My measurements made the section less—8 in. to 9 in., but the length greater, 23 ft.; and Babu Rajendra points out that one, 21 ft. long, has a square section of 8 in. at the end, but a depth of 11 in. in the centre,[433] showing a knowledge of the properties and strength of the material that is remarkable in a people who are now so utterly incapable of forging such masses. The iron pillar at Delhi ([Woodcut No. 281]) is even a more remarkable example than this, and no satisfactory explanation has yet been given as to the mode in which it was manufactured. Its object, however, is plain, while the employment of these beams here is a mystery. They were not wanted for strength, as the building is still firm after they have fallen, and so expensive a false ceiling was not wanted architecturally to roof so plain a chamber. It seems to be only another instance of that profusion of labour which the Hindus loved to lavish on the temples of their gods.
Puri.