| Temples & Legends of Himachal Pradesh |
 |
| Temples & Legends Of India |
CHAMBA |
|
| An
open gallery, i.e. a pradakshina-patha supported by twelve massive wooden columns,
surrounds this nucleus. But, the interstices between the columns have later been filled in
with whitewashed rude masonry of rubble blocks and clay strengthened by a number of
horizontal beams. Instead, new wooden galleries have been constructed in front and on the
right side. And an almost flat pyramidal roof of well-cut slates covers the whole (thirty
by twenty-nine feet). Only the
sanctuary proper and the, once open, gallery surrounding it belong to the original temple.
The rubble masonry was last renewed after the earthquake of 1905, and old photographs show an almost flat gable roof in place of the present pyramidal one. The later wooden galleries have the elegant, but decadent forms of the eighteenth century, with columns in which medieval pot-and-foliage capitals,sixteenth century Rajput brackets and scaly Mughal pillar shafts in the style of Muhammad Shah have been blended into a quaint product of folk art. As already mentioned, the original shrine is surrounded by a gallery (measuring inside twenty-four feet ten inches by twenty-five feet two inches, and, up to the lowest beam eight feet two inches high) supported by twelve heavy pillars (one foot six inches thick) of deodar wood, very similar to those of theLakshana Devi temple at Brahmaur. But their decoration is somewhat richer and more elegant, the design more fluid and variegated, but also more mannered, and the individual motifs more interesting, though less numerous. In comparison with the Chitrari pillars those of Brahmaur look stiff, geometrical and almost clumsy. On the sridhara brackets lions and other animals alternate with flying gandharvas, and stylized Rower scrolls with the deities of the central-niche panels. On the exterior side, of course, these, carvings, are very badly corroded by the weather, whereas the fringe of stalactite knobs (opali) along the edge of the roof must have been renewed in the course of time. |
|
