01Where Kalinga building begins
The tower is short, about twelve metres, and its curve is gentle; a later Bhubaneswar builder would have pushed it twice as high. In front sits a low rectangular hall with a two-tiered sloping roof and latticed stone windows. This pairing of deul and jagamohana became the rule for every Kalinga temple after it, Lingaraja and Puri included. Here it appears for the first time, still a little uncertain, the hall simply set against the sanctum wall.
02Lakulisha and the Mothers
The carving is crisp after thirteen centuries. Lakulisha, the teacher of the Pashupata Shaivas, sits teaching with his disciples above the doorway. On the north wall of the hall the seven Mothers, the Saptamatrikas, sit in a row with Virabhadra and Ganesha at the ends. Elsewhere Ravana lifts Kailasa, Shiva and Parvati sit together, and musicians play in small panels. A smaller shrine and a sahasralinga, a linga carved with a thousand tiny lingas, stand in the same compound.
The life of this place
- c. 650 CEThe temple is built under the Shailodbhava rulers.
In the old town near the Mukteshwar temple group; puja continues, and Shivaratri draws the neighbourhood.
