Mahabalipuram. Bhima Rath
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Photographer: Arthur Llewellyn Basham
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The Bhima Rath is of a special type not essentially southern in form. It is based on the communal chaitya hall and imitates a thatched roof, which is a derivative of wooden construction based on the parabolic vault. The only surviving temple built on this structural type appears at Badami in the Malegitti Sivalaya temple, built around 625 A.D. in the purely Dravidian (southern style) type. Its decoration makes use of lions as caryatids for the columns forming the colonnade, a long continuous frieze of a miniature town along the lintel system above the columns and numerous miniature chaitya window motifs on the roof, frieze and the ends of the temple. It is somewhat squat in overall height and is therefore, unlike the usual southern chaitya halls, of a free-standing nature.
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Basham Collection
Date created
circa 1970s
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This item is provided for research purposes. Contact the Australian National University Archives at butlin.archives@anu.edu.au for permission to use.
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