EARLIEST STRUCTURAL TEMPLES

Evidence of the earliest known structural temples has been recovered through excavations; these are, however, too fragmentary to give a complete idea as to their form. A circular brick-and-timber shrine of the Maurya period(c. 3rd century B.C.) was excavated at Bairat (District Jaipur, in Rajasthan). The shrine measured 8.23 m. in diameter and was made of llime-plastered panels of brickwork, alternating with 26 octagonal pillars of wood. It was entered from the east through a small portico, supported on 2 wooden pillars and was surrounded by a 7-foot-wide ambulatory with an opening on the east. The whole structure was subsequently enclosed within a rectangular compound (21 m x 13.5 m), containing an open ground for the assembly in front of the entrance.

A second example of a Maurya temple uncovered by excavations_Temple 40 at Sanchi_has likewise a consistent plan. It was a stone temple on an ap[sidal plan, enclosed by an ambulatory and raised on a high, rectangular (26.5m x 24m) socle, approached by two flights of steps from diagonally opposite sides. The superstructure, possibly of timber, has disappeared. In the following century the socle was enlarged and the temple converted into a rectangular hypostyle mandapa measuring 41.75m x 27.75m, with 5 rows of 10 pillars, approached by lateral flights of steps at one end.

Temple 18 at Sanchi also was an apsidal stone temple probably with a timber superstructure, originally dating from the 2nd century B.C. The present ramins of the apsidal temple with its stately pillars and pilasters date from about the 7th century A.D.though the temple remained in use use till the medieval period.

Two other temples of a comparable date existed, one dedicated to Sankarshana and Vasudeva at Nagari (ancient Madhyamika) in Udaipur district, Rajasthan and the other, also a hagavata (Vaishnava) shrine, at Besnagar near Sanchi in central India. Both of them were elliptical on plan and were possibly made of timber, but their remains are too s crappy to yield an idea of their elevation and design. In front of the Besnagar shrine stands the famous stone pillar recording that this Garuda-standare was set up by the Greek ambassador Heliodorus who proudly called himself a Bhagavata (Vaishnava).

Examples next in date of the apsidal plan come from Nagarjunakonda (District Guntur), a site excavated on a vast scale to salvage its antiquities. Recently a few more apsidal shrines, sacred to the Buddhist as well as the Shaiva sect, have been unravelled in addition to temples with large hypostyle mandapas dedicated to the worship of Shiva and Karttikeya. They are all of the Ikshvaku period (2nd-3rd centuries A.D.).