Note 17 — BHINMÁL.

Appendix III. Bhinmál. Sun Temple. Sun Temple.The second and main object of interest is the ruined Sun temple in the south of the town on a brick mound about eighty yards east of the remains of the Gujarát gateway. The brick mound which is crowned by the white marble pillars and the massive laterite ruins of the temple of Jagsvámi Lord of the World has been so dug into that its true form and size cannot be determined. The size of many of the bricks 1′ 16″ × 1′ × 3″ suggests that the mound is older even than the massive laterite masonry of the shrine. And that here as at Multán about the sixth century during the supremacy of the sun-worshipping White Húṇas a temple of the Sun was raised on the ruins of a Buddhist temple or relic mound. Still except the doubtful evidence of the size of the bricks nothing has been found to support the theory that the Sun temple stands on an earlier Buddhist ruin. The apparent present dimensions of the mound are 42′ broad 60′ long and 20′ high. Of the temple the north side and north-west corner are fairly complete. The east entrance to the hall, the south pillars of the hall, and with them the hall dome and the outer wall of the temple round the south and west of the shrine have disappeared. A confused heap of bricks on the top of the shrine and of the entrance from the hall to the shrine is all that is left of the spire and upper buildings. The materials used are of three kinds. The pillars of the hall are of a white quartzlike marble; the masonry of the shrine walls and of the passage round the north of the shrine is of a reddish yellow laterite, and the interior of the spire and apparently some other roof buildings are of brick. Beginning from the original east entrance the ground has been cut away so close to the temple and so many of the pillars have fallen that almost no trace of the entrance is left. The first masonry, entering from the east, are the two eastern pillars of the hall dome and to the north of this central pair the pillar that supported the north-eastern corner of the dome. Except the lowest rim, on the east side, all trace of the dome and of the roof over the dome are gone. The centre of the hall is open to the sky. The south side is even more ruined than the east side. The whole outer wall has fallen and been removed. The south-east corner the two south pillars of the dome and the south-west corner pillars are gone. The north side is better preserved. The masonry that rounds off the corners from which the dome sprung remains and along the rim of the north face runs a belt of finely carved female figures. The north-east corner pillar, the two north pillars of the dome, and the north-west corner pillar all remain. Outside of the pillars runs a passage about four feet broad and eleven feet high, and, beyond the passage, stands the north wall of the temple with an outstanding deep-eaved window balcony with white marble seats and backs and massive pillars whose six feet shafts are in three sections square eightsided and round and on whose double-disc capitals rest brackets which support a shallow cross-cornered dome. At its west end the north passage is ornamented with a rich gokla or recess 3½ broad with side pillars 3¼ feet high. On the west side of the dome the central pair of dome pillars and as has been noticed the north corner pillar remain. About three feet west of the west pair of dome pillars a second pair support the domed entrance to the shrine. The richly carved side pillars, a goddess with fly-flap bearers, and the lintel of the shrine door remain but the bare square chamber of the shrine is open to the sky. To the south of the shrine the entire basis of the south side of the spire, the outer circling or pradakshana passage and the outer wall of the temple have disappeared. The north side is much less ruinous. There remain Appendix III. Bhinmál. Sun Temple. the massive blocks of yellow and red trap which formed the basis of the spire built in horizontal bands of deep-cut cushions, and in the centre of the north wall a niche with outstanding pillared frame, the circling passage with walls of plain trap and roof of single slabs laid across and the outer wall of the temple with bracket capitaled pillars and a central deep-eaved and pillared hanging window of white marble. The circling passage and the outer wall of the temple end at the north-west corner. Of the western outer wall all trace is gone. The pillars of the temple are massive and handsome with pleasantly broken outline, a pedestal, a square, an eightsided band, a sixteensided band, a round belt, a narrow band of horned faces, the capital a pair of discs, and above the discs outstanding brackets each ending in a crouching four-armed male or female human figure upholding the roof. The six central dome pillars resemble the rest except that instead of the sixteensided band the inner face is carved into an urn from whose mouth overhang rich leafy festoons and which stand on a roll of cloth or a ring of cane such as women set between the head and the waterpot.17 On the roof piles of bricks show that besides the spire some building rose over the central dome and eastern entrance but of its structure nothing can now be traced.