150 



DESCRIPTIVE REMARKS ON 



is met consisting of a verandah or portico open to the east in 

 front of a small shrine of Pidari, a village goddess ; and a few 

 yards in front of the temple stands a balipitham or sacrificial 

 altar, with a stone lion couchant. Kavali Lakshmayya, para. 29, 

 p. 214, of Carr's book, mentions the " lingam and yoni " here. 

 Where there is a lingam, the emblem of Siva, one would expect 

 to find the bull, Nandi his vehicle, instead of the lion. But 

 the bull is very rare throughout this locality except at the shore 

 temple (No. 6), where one bull may be seen on the roof of the 

 smaller shrine over the entrance, west, and many more fallen and 

 scattered about, or cast into the sea to help form the breakwater 

 which protects the site from the wash of the sea. 



PlDARI-KULAM QUARRY RaTHA MONOLITH (NORTH). 



2. A hundred yards south-south-west of the last (No. 1), near 

 the stone quarry, stands a small monolithic shrine only blocked out 

 below and not quite finished above. In style it much resembles 

 those at the extreme south end of the locality : only it opens and 

 faces to the east, whereas they open to the west except one 

 No. 41, which faces and opens to the south. 



It was designed for a cubical cell with a small portico projec- 

 tion, roofed in steps pyramidally, and has two upper floors or 

 cell- terraces with ornamented cornices and. balustrade ornament 

 for each terrace as usual here. The horse-shoe gable ornaments 

 of the cornice contain human faces or masks, whilst it is not clear 

 what those of the domical cell roofs and of the octagonal dome 

 itself contained ; probably the little curved projecting block that 

 elsewhere caps the similar square vertical shafts which have 

 been left standing under each such hood or dormer. 2 



The dome is octagonal, taller than a semi-diameter, and has 

 raised ornamental ribs at the angles, with a flat-spiked dormer 



2 These dormers or curved gable ornaments were much used by the 

 Buddhists, and are diminutive copies of the facades of their Caitya Halls, or 

 Church-like temple caves. They seem to have derived the design from some 

 common form of the front or gable end of a pre-existing temple or house 

 built of timber and roofed with thatch or plaster. They are sometimes called 

 Caitya window ornaments. 



