| Temples & Legends of Himachal Pradesh |
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| Temples & Legends Of India |
CHAMBA |
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wooden pillars, with their pot-and- foliage capitals, supporting elaborately carved
bracket-capitals in which couchant bulls and other animals have been introduced, deserve
special notice. The corresponding lintel shows thirteen sitting figures, most of them
four-armed and, as the tenth from the left, a big head in profile, with matted hair and
well - executed ear- rings. This permits the group to be identified as the navagraha,
including Rahu the dragon demon causing the eclipse of the moon, and, on the right, the
four lakapalas, the guardian deities of the four cardinal points, The innermost frame,
finally, is decorated with highly stylized scrollwork sprouting from long drawn creeper
spirals growing out of the mouths of two sitting yakshas at the bottom. The idol of Shakti Devi in the sanctum is a fine brass statue, with its socle four feet, six inches high. This copper socle is much lower than that of Lakshana, as the goddess stands on a big lotus, with reverted over-ripe petals, such as is a very common convention in Nepalese and Tibetan art. She has a very slim, elegant body covered only with a transparent skirt falling down to the ankles and forming some folds between the legs, held by a rich belt (mekhala) with a kind of girdle and strings of pearls of the same type as that worn by Lakshana Devi. Also the scarf hanging over her shoulders, her necklace, armlets, bracelets and ear- rings are of the same sort. But besides these, a long string of pearls hangs down from her neck between the heavy breasts to her thighs. And on her head she wears a high diadem, consisting of a golden circle decorated with two jewelled flowers above each ear, from which bands flow down, and a pile of five jewels above the fore head from which plummets emerge to the right, left and top. In her two right hands Shakti Devi holds a lance (sakti-a lance, but also power, energy) and a lotus (life), in her left hand a bell (aether, space) and a snake (death and time). |
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