[439] The plan is reduced from one to a scale of 40 feet to 1 in., made by an intelligent native assistant to the Public Works Department, named Radhica Pursâd Mukerji, and is the only plan I ever found done by a native sufficiently correct to be used, except as a diagram, or after serious doctoring.
[440] Hunter, ‘Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 128.
[441] News has just reached this country of a curious accident having happened in this temple. Just after the gods had been removed from their Sinhasan to take their annual excursion to the Gundicha Nûr, some stones of the roof fell in, and would have killed any attendants and smashed the gods had they not fortunately all been absent. Assuming the interior of the Bara Dewul to be as represented ([Woodcut No. 124]), it is not easy to see how this could have happened. But in the same woodcut the porch or Jagamohan of the Kanaruc pagoda is represented with a flat false roof, which has fallen, and now encumbers the floor of the apartment. That roof, however, was formed of stone laid on iron beams, and looked as if it could only have been shaken down by an earthquake. I have little doubt that a similar false roof was formed someway up the tower over the altar at Puri, but formed probably of stone laid on wooden beams and either decay or the white ants having destroyed the timber, the stones have fallen as narrated.
A similar roof so supported on wooden beams still exists in the structural temple on the shore at Mahavellipore, and, I have no doubt, elsewhere, but it is almost impossible to get access to these cells when the gods are at home, and the places are so dark it is equally impossible to see, except when in ruins, how they were roofed.
[442] ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xv. p. 367.
[443] Ibid., p. 335; Hunter’s ‘Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 266.
[444] ‘Ayeen Akbery,’ Gladwin’s translation, vol. ii. p. 13.
[445] These dimensions, except those of Kanaruc, are taken from a table in Babu Rajendra’s ‘Antiquities of Orissa,’ vol. i. p. 41, and are sufficient to give an idea of the relative size of the building. So far as I can make out they are taken from angle to angle of the towers, but as they all have projections on their faces, when cubed, as is done in the table referred to, they are much too small. I may also observe that I know of no instance in which the two dimensions differ. The four faces are always, I believe, alike. The dates are my own; none are given, except for the great temple, in the Babu’s first volume.
[446] The two works on this subject are the ‘Architectural History of Dharwar and Mysore,’ fol., 100 plates, Murray, 1866, and Burgess’s ‘Report on the Belgam and Kuladgi Districts,’ 1874. Considering the time available and the means at his disposal, Mr. Burgess did wonders, but it is no dispraise to say that he has not, nor could any man in his place, exhaust so vast a subject.
[447] For architectural purposes the three places may be considered as one. Aiwulli is five or six miles north of Badami, and Purudkul or Pittadkul as far south. Ten miles covers the whole, which must have been in the 6th or 7th century a place of great importance—possibly Watipipura, the capital of the Chalukyas in the 5th or 6th century. See ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. iv. p. 9.