Photo 212/3(24)

Genre: Architectural Photography

View looking towards mandapa and unfinished gopura at the eastern entrance to the Ramalingeshvara Temple at Rameswaram. Lyon's 'Notes to accompany a series of photographs prepared to illustrate the ancient architecture of Southern India' (Marion and Co., London, 1870), edited by James Fergusson, gives the following description of this photograph: '354 - If the visitor starts to visit the Temple from this temporary abode, he approaches it from the east side, and this photograph gives an excellent view of its east entrance, and of the unfinished tower over it. Like the western entrance, this one is entirely of stone, but appears never to have been completed. As it now stands, it is little more than half, certainly not two-thirds, of the height originally intended. There are two colonnaded passages in front of this gateway tower, leading to the interior from this side, the one here shown, and another to the left; both are about 80 feet long and 20 feet wide. The principal one is shown in the photograph. The carvings on the pillars in this porch appear once to have been fine, but they are now covered with plaster half-an-inch thick, and as this has in places peeled off, it gives it a poor and patchy effect. The porch at the other entrance appears never to have been roofed, being now only thatched with grass. The pillars are carved with representations of the Ramnad Rajahs, but covered thickly with plaster. Here it is that the marriage ceremony between Shiva and Parvati is yearly commenced ; but should it happen that a Brahmin sneezes during the progress, the omen is considered unfavourable, and the ceremony postponed to the following year.' Another copy at Photo 1000 (3003).