251. Pillar in Barrolli.
(From a Plate in Tod’s ‘Annals of Rajastan.’)
A little way from the great temple are two pillars, one of which is here represented ([Woodcut No. 251]). They evidently supported one of those torans, or triumphal archways, which succeeded the gateways of the Buddhist topes, and form frequently a very pleasing adjunct to Hindu temples. They are, however, frail edifices at best, and easily overthrown, wherever the bigotry of the Moslems came into play.
Gualior.
One temple, existing in the fortress of Gualior, has been already described under the title of the Jaina Temple (ante, p. 244), though whether it is Jaina or Vaishnava is by no means easily determined. At the same place there is another, bearing the not very dignified name of the Teli ka Mandir, or Oilman’s Temple ([Woodcut No. 252]). It is a square of 60 ft. each way, with a portico on the east projecting about 11 ft. Unlike the other temples we have been describing, it does not terminate upwards in a pyramid, nor is it crowned by an amalaka, but in a ridge of about 30 ft. in extent, which may originally have had three amalakas upon it. I cannot help believing that this form of temple was once more common than we now find it. There are several examples of it at Mahavellipore (Woodcuts Nos. [181], [182]), evidently copied from a form common among the Buddhists, and one very beautiful example is found at Bhuvaneswar,[463] there called Kapila Devi, and dedicated to Siva. The Teli ka Mandir was originally dedicated to Vishnu, but afterwards converted to the worship of Siva. There is no inscription or any tradition from which its date can be gathered, but on the whole I am inclined to place it in the 10th or 11th century.
Khajurâho.
As mentioned above, the finest and most extensive group of temples belonging to the northern or Indo-Aryan style of architecture is that gathered round the great temple at Bhuvaneswar. They are also the most interesting historically, inasmuch as their dates extend through five or six centuries, and they alone consequently enable us to bridge over the dark ages of Indian art. From its remote situation, Orissa seems to have escaped, to a great extent at least, from the troubles that agitated northern and western India during the 8th and 9th centuries; and though from this cause we can find nothing in Central India to fill up the gap between Chandravati and Gualior, in Orissa the series is complete, and, if properly examined and described, would afford a consecutive history of the style from say 500 to 1100 or 1200 A.D.
Next in interest and extent to the Bhuvaneswar group is that at Khajurâho,[464] in Bundelcund, as before mentioned (p. 245). At