THE SEVEN PAGODAS. 



151 



in each face surrounded by scroll work carved round the base of 

 the dome, which has a considerable splay, bell-fashion. There 

 is no crowning ornament to the dome, or to any of the little 

 domical cells that adorn the two terraces of the roof. 



Immediately under the eaves of the dome there is a row of 

 dwarfs (?) in high relief, and two bas-relief human figures in 

 the two panels of the middle storey facing the east, one on each 

 side of the centre, where there was probably to be an image or 

 emblem to which these figures have regard and incline. Their 

 inner hands are raised, and they wear tallish caps with big 

 flaps, large earrings, a necklace and sacred thread. 



3. Only a few yards to the south-south-west of the last (No. 2) 

 stands a very similar unfinished monolithic shrine cut out of an 

 adjacent boulder, pieces of which have been split off below by 

 modern-looking wedge-holes. 



The portico and entrance of this shrine are to the north, but 

 the lower storey or ground floor is only roughly blocked out. 

 The centre of the east wall is occupied by a panel, probably in- 

 tended to be excavated into a niche or recess between pilasters, 

 not half -pilasters as in the wall-niches of Draupadi's Eatha 

 (No. 37) which it in many respects resembles, and as in those of 

 the Olakkannesvara temple (No. 34). The style of the pilasters 

 is the same as those of the former, and so is the very florid scroll 

 and the drop-bracket (?) over the centre of the niche. The 

 cornices are adorned with semi-circular hoods or facets contain- 

 ing a human face with bushy head of hair in each. 



The corresponding dormers of the domical cell roofs contain a 

 semi-circular niche with some object I failed to note. Some human 

 figures have been begun on the panels of the middle storey. 

 The dome is quadrangular with raised ribs or edges at the angles 

 and scrolls. The four dormers contain the projecting (canopy ?) 

 block under a semi-circular niche or recess as usual. 



4. About 160 yards further south stands the Valaiyankuttai 

 Eatha a monolithic shrine, which somewhat resembles the 

 foregoing (Nos. 2 and 3), but is slightly more finished and more 

 elaborate in style. 



In plan it is square with the shallow portico on the east side. 

 It has two upper floors of domical cells and a rather squat 



