Recent Study on Two Vaishnavite Temples of the Undivided Puri District of Odisha in India

The study of art and architecture of the Vishnavite temples of the undivided Puri district are the important aspects of the Hindu temple building activities of Odisha in Eastern India.Some of the earlier scholars had given importance to the artistic activities of the famous Vaishnavite temples of Odisha like Sri Jagannatha temple, Narasimha temple, Alarnath temple, Gopinath temple, etc, but they have not undertaken their research works on other minor Vaishnavite temples of the coastal belt of Odisha.The temples of Odisha represent a distinct category within Indian temple architecture and are commonly referred to as the "Kalinga style" (Behera, 1993, p.1).An inscription found on the capital of a pillar in the Mukha Mandapa of the Amritesvara temple at Holala (in Karnataka's Bellary district) cites the Kalinga style alongside Nagara, Dravida, and Vesara as one of the four principal classifications of Indian temples (Madras Epigraphica Report, 1914-15, p.90 and Kramrisch, Vol.1, 1946, pp.286-295).All the extant temples in Odisha, including those dedicated to Vishnu, conform to this Kalinga style architectural tradition.Within this tradition, each temple form and its structural elements are designated by specific terms (Mohapatra, 1982, p.14).The Bhubana Pradipa, a treatise on temple design,