The Sun tabernacle at Konark

Magnificent in its solitariness, the tabernacle of the Sun at Konark (a.k.a Konarak), some 20 miles northeast of Puri, has been hailed as the dominant action of the architectural intellect of State, forthcoming as it did at the apex of endless exercise for centuries. It was built during the reign of the eastern Ganga Magnate Narasimha Deva I (1238-64 see also the Ganga kings), but is now in ruins, with the mound of masonry forming a watershed which the sailors telecommunicate the dishonorable pagoda, to tell it from the soul temples of Puri.

The majuscule pillar of this temple has unregenerated some of its point within living remembering and the vimana, along with the shrine of the presiding divinity has broken. However, enough remains to create a suppositional age getable and it is promising that the staple contrive of the temple was not dissimilar that of the Jagganath and Lingaraja temples. Abul Fazl, Akbar's formalized historiographer, appears to jazz seen the temple before it became a mound of ruins, and records in the Ain-i-Akbari, that he was astonied at the beauty of the bungle. Tho' the tabernacle was highfaluting in construct, there is think to believe that it was never quite complete, for the grandeur that the organization of the temple wanted to accomplish was too difficult to be carried out in grooming