Chapter 65 - The Vāvāṭa Style (Digbhadra Prāsāda)

[Note: This chapter corresponds to Chapter 64 of the original Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra]

The very first line of this chapter designates these Prāsadas as Vāvāṭa Prāsādas and they are as many as twelve in number (see Part V), The word Vāvāṭa or more correctly Vairāṭa is of controversial nature among contemporary works on Hindu Temple. I have tried to critically examine their views and aḍding my own, under the chapter ‘Styles’. Here it is enough to indicate that this is one of the regional styles developed somewhere in the vicinity of the modern Rajaputana and Gujarata and it might be a mixed style. But Samarāṅgaṇa Sūtradhāra epitomising all the prevalent styles with various ramifications into the manifold temple types, might be coining the terminology of some of the architectural evolutions as “Vairat has no place in the Sanskrit accounts of ancient Indian Geography” and Raja Bhoja must have coined this word to complete the triad by Vairāṭa (in place of Vesara) as the name of style called Vasara (so much talked in the contemporary discussions) does not occur in the Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra. The Samarāṅgaṇa Sūtradhāra describes these Vāvāṭa temples similar in plan to Nāgara temples. The component parts together with the super structure do not fit in with the existing monuments of the Nāgara temples. Hence they represent a mixed style,