| On
the southern side, both in the Cutting across the garbhagriha and that across the mandapa
were discovered Kanjur stone retaining walls which stratigraphically are earlier than
Phase I of the, temple. In the latter cutting again, we have already noticed that stage I
of the sea wall was, in origin, earlier than Phase I of the temple and also was
contemporary with Kanjur stone retaining walls. These
facts point to the prior existence in the neighbourhood of some structure which either was
demolished Or had itself fallen into ruins at the time of the building of Phase I temple.
According to the Puranic legend, Prabhasa was famous for sun worship 6 and it may be quite
likely that the structure referred to above may have been a Surya temple. The inference,
no doubt, does not pretend to be conclusive and the matter is still open to future
research on the subject.
6 Formerly the Sun God shone over Prabhasa so
brightly that his wife Chhaya could not come near him. On her request, therefore, he
divided his light into 16 parts and distributed 12-16ths of it in the shape of Surya
temples. |
