194 Description of Ancient Temples and [April, 



attendants are supported on or rising from lotos flowers. The groupes 

 of the two divisions, which are less elevated than the others, exhibit, 

 I believe, Durga, flanked by Lacshmi and Saraswati ; five of 

 these figures are crowned with a sort of tri-pointed diadem, while the 

 sixth has a round turban or cap. One of the forms of Durga' has 

 the right foot on the head of the demon, while the left is twisted up 

 at her side, and the hands are elapsed over the breast, in the attitude of 

 supplication ; under the central groupe of the whole, and forming part 

 of what may have been intended for the ornamented frieze of the tem- 

 ple, is a seated figure of Ganesh in relief, five inches high, flanked by 

 two other persons, one of them playing on a stringed instrument, and 

 the other wielding a club. The lower part and sides of the block are 

 decorated with a band of carving, showing beasts of different kinds, 

 encircled by wreaths of flowers, in relief, and the gods are placed in 

 scalloped arches, supported by pillars, which divide each of the images 

 from its neighbour. 



The priests are so little versed in the distinguishing characteris- 

 tics of the Hindu deities, that they could not determine whom the 

 figures were intended to represent. 



Near the images are nine square pedestals of large dimensions, with 

 three carved feet, which must have been intended to give support to as 

 many columns : of these, several have almost disappeared in the earth ; 

 and it is likely, others are lost altogether. It shows at all events the 

 design of the temple must have been projected on a large scale. 

 These pedestals do not appear to have been moved from the spot 

 where they were originally carved, and they are so little impaired by 

 time and exposure to the elements, that I feel assured they are of 

 modern date, compared with the buildings in the plantation and on 

 the adjacent plains ; they were, indeed, as fresh to look at as if but re- 

 cently executed by the mason's chisel. Vast fragments of the epis- 

 tylium and frieze, carved with beaded drapery, also lie half buried in 

 the soil. The people at one time commenced fracturing the stones, 

 from an idea that gold was concealed in their cavities, but desisted, on 

 a mysterious warning of the goddess Durga', who threatened to 

 visit such sacrilegious attempts with death. 



In the south-west angle of the Pora plains, there is another curious 

 remnant of sculpture, also wrought from a single mass of granite, up- 

 wards of ten feet long, and two and a half feet thick at the middle ; 

 it appears to have formed the side of a gate, and has a band of carv- 

 ing three inches broad on each side, showing in relief elephants, 

 tigers, deer, rams, cattle, and swans, encircled by scrolls of flowers. 

 The stone has in all twenty-five figures of Hindu deities, disposed 



