of the porch. These are twenty-eight in number, and all are different. Some are pierced with merely conventional patterns, generally star-shaped, and with foliaged bands between; others
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258. View of part of Porch at Bêlûr. (From a Photograph.)
are interspersed with figures and mythological subjects, the nearest one, for instance, on the left, in the woodcut, represents the Narasimha Avatâra, and other different scenes connected with the worship of Vishnu, to whom the temple is dedicated. The pierced slabs themselves, however, are hardly so remarkable as the richly-carved base on which they rest, and the deep cornice which overshadows and protects them. The amount of labour, indeed, which each facet of this porch displays is such as, I believe, never was bestowed on any surface of equal extent in any building in the world; and though the design is not of the highest order of art, it is elegant and appropriate, and never offends against good taste.
The sculptures of the base of the vimâna, which have not been whitewashed, are as elaborate as those of the porch, in some places more so; and the mode in which the undersides of the cornices have been elaborated and adorned is such as is only to be found in temples of this class. The upper part of the tower is anomalous. It may be that it has been white-
