Famous Temples in India

Architecture

Temple is facing in East direction and built in Kalinga style of architecture. The Bhairavi Devi temple is situated to the left of the main temple, and the Bhairo temple is situated to the right of the main temple. The plinth of the temple has deviated slightly from its original arrangement, and as a result, the body of the temple has tilted. This tilt has fascinated historians, sculptors and other researchers. The surprising thing is that the main temple is tilted in one direction, whereas the other small temples are tilted in other directions. Within the temple complex i.e. within the boundaries of temple, everything is in a tilted condition, including the boundaries themselves, and the villagers and priests says that the angle of inclination has not changed over last 40 or 50 years. The tilt may be due to a geological reason; the underlying rock may be uneven in structure. The angle of inclination of the tilt has not yet been measured.

The temple is positioned on a rocky outcrop on the bank of the river Mahanadi. The reason for the leaning cannot be assumed to have been technical flaws at the time of construction. It is also not an easily acceptable idea that a weak foundation might have caused the leaning of the temple. There may perhaps have been interior displacement of the rocky bed on which it stands, either due to flood currents in the river Mahanadi, or earthquakes.