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however, meeting. They bear, as it were on their shoulders, a cylindrical 

 neck, and this, with the aid of brackets in the form of eight immense 

 griffins or lions, supports the ornamented crest or head piece, shaped some- 

 what like a turban, which forms so distinguishing a feature in the temple 

 architecture of Orissa. It consists of a huge solid circular slab, called the 

 Amla Sila, from some fancied resemblance to the fruit of the Amlika (Phyl- 

 lanthus Emblica), on which rests another circular ornament, in the form of 

 a large inverted earthen dish, and thence indeed called the " Dihi Bandtii." 

 Sometimes the two ornaments are repeated. On the summit stands, either 

 an urn, or the Chakra of Vishnu, according to circumstances, surmounted 

 by an iron spike, to which pendants are attached on occasions of ceremony. 

 The best illustration that can be given, of the shape and appearance of the 

 generality of these towers, is to compare them to a medicine phial or com- 

 fit bottle with the stopper inserted, though the comparison does not do 

 justice to the picturesque effect of the grand and massive building which I 

 am now describing. From each face of the sanctuary, at different degrees 

 of elevation, a huge monster projects to a distance of several feet, which 

 has the body of a lion, but a most grotesque and unnatural countenance, 

 resembling nothing in the catalogue of terrestrial animals. The figure on 

 the eastern face is by far the largest, and it has between its feet, an elephant 

 of comparatively dimunitive size, on which it is trampling. This, it may 

 be observed, is the common mode of representing the lion of Hindu my- 

 thology, one of the epithets of which is, Gaja Machula, or the destroyer of 

 the elephant. The entrance to the tower lies through a large square ves- 

 tibule or antichamber, crowned with a pyramidal roof, and surmounted by 

 the crest or series of ornaments above described, which joins on to the 

 eastern face of the sanctuary, and rises to about three-fourths of its height. 

 It is called the Jagamohana, or that which delights the world, because it 

 is from thence that the idol is generally seen and worshipped by pilgrims: 

 These two buildings form the essential and most sacred part of the tem- 

 ples of Orissa. Farther in advance of the Jagamohana, and connected with 

 it by a sort of colonnade, is another square edifice of precisely the Mine 



