THE TEMPLE: POSITION AND PLAN

The Greek temple of Jaṇḍiāl occupies a commanding position on an artificial mound (Jaṇḍiāl C) some 700 yards north of the northern gateway of the Sirkap city and 250 yards outside the Kacchā Koṭ suburb. A stone's throw to the west of it is a second mound (Jaṇḍiāl D), and between the two ran, in all probability, the ancient high-road to the Indus and Gandhāra. The temple, which faces south towards the city's gateway, is of imposing proportions. Its length, including the projection in front of the portico to the back wall, is 158 ft., and excluding the peristyle, a little over 100 ft. Its plan is unlike that of any temple yet known in Pakistan or India, but its resemblance to the classical temples of Greece is striking (Fig. 5). The ordinary Greek peripteral temple is surrounded on all sides by a peristyle of columns and contains a pronaos or front porch, a naos or sanctuary, and, at the rear, an opisthodomos or back porch, known to the Romans as the posticum. In some temples, such as the Parthenon at Athens or the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, there is an extra chamber between the sanctuary and the back porch, which in the case of the Parthenon was called the ‘Parthenon’ or chamber of the virgin goddess Athene. In the temple at Jaṇḍiāl the plan is almost identically the same. In place of the usual peristyle of columns is a wall pierced at frequent intervals by large windows which admitted ample light to the interior. At the main or southern entrance of the temple are two Ionic columns in antis, i.e. between pilasters, which supported the ends of the architrave passing above them. Corresponding to them on the further side of a spacious vestibule is another pair of similar columns in antis. Then comes, just as in Greek temples, the pronaos leading through a broad doorway to the naos, while at the back of the temple is another chamber corresponding to the opisthodomos. The only essential difference in plan between this and a Greek temple is that, instead of an extra chamber between the opisthodomos and the sanctuary, there is at Jaṇḍiāl a solid mass of masonry, the foundations of which are carried down over 20 ft.