The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

THE PERIOD OF THE HINDU DYNASTIES 283
wheels intricately carved in stone [219], and, to
complete the illusion of the solar car, colossal
free-standing statues of horses were installed in
front of the main entrance, as though actually
dragging the god's chariot through the sky.
The principal fragment which survives at
Konaraka consists of the lofty porch or ceremonial
hall. It is conceived as a great cube of
masonry measuring a hundred feet on a side
and rising to a height of a hundred feet. The
incomplete spire presumably would have attained
a height of nearly two hundred feet. The
exterior decoration is in entire harmony with
the line and mass of the building as a whole.
The basement storey is ornamented first with
the stone wheels standing free of the fabric ; in
the lowest zone of the base is a continuous frieze
representing a great variety of genre scenes
dealing mainly with the hunting of elephants
and other wild animals ; above this, arranged in
two separate friezes, is a series of niches separated
by widely projecting pilasters filled with
sculpture of a very interesting and highly erotic
type ; the facades of the hall proper are divided
into a base and two distinct friezes by heavily
accented and repeated string courses [219];
above this rises the pyramidal roof that we have
already found in the bhadra types at Bhuvanesvar.
Three distinct terraces recede to the
crowning member in the shape of a gigantic
stone lotus of the amalaka type. The terraces
are emphasized - in ascending order - by six
218. Konaraka, Sun a Deul temple