THE SEVEN PAGODAS. 



205 



side of the entrance to the porch, with an elephant's head 

 between them. 



The ground floor or lowest storey has a portico projection on 

 the east side crowned by the usual cell-ornaments and containing 

 =a vestibule or ante-chamber through which is the only approach 

 to the shrine-cell, a small cubical chamber im which is a fine 

 large sixteen-sided lingam, dismantled from its pedestal which is 

 gone, and displaced (by searchers for treasure). 



The tableau of Siva, Parvati and child with their two attendant 

 deities, is carved on a panel slab fixed in the back wall of the 

 cella behind the lingam and opposite the doorway, under a pro- 

 jecting cornice which extends the whole width of the chamber. 



Besides this there are two copies, of the same tableau appar- 

 ently, in the porch, making three in all in this shrine, the same 

 number as in the Atiranacandesvara temple at Saluvankuppam ; 

 but there is still another of it in the subordinate shrine of this 

 temple which opens to the west, making a total of ten noticed by 

 the writer in this locality. 



There are two other figures, four-armed, carved on the back 

 wall, one on each side of the central tableau, but there was 

 insufficient light to make them out clearly. 



Ten lamp niches have been cut in the side and front walls so as 

 to throw a good light on the lingam and on the tableau. But for 

 these niches, and except a slight moulding under what was the 

 ceiling, the north-east and south walls are ejuite plain. 



From the two rows of rafter holes in the north and south walls 

 just above the cornice there would appear to have been a double 

 ceiling to the cell, of which, however, no other traces remain ; 

 but the remains of a third ceiling still exist at a good height above 

 the position of the double row of rafter holes just mentioned. 

 Three out of six of the rafters or beams remain. 



Kavali Lakshmayya mentions four sandalwood beams remain- 

 ing in his day (1803) ; only three remain now, and they are not of 



sandalwood but , a common timber found in the jungles of 



South Arcot. 



Immediately above the beams the tower is ceiled with slabs of 



