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cherubims and palm trees, gilt. In the sanctuary two figures of cherubs were placed. whose wings touched each other in the centre, and extended outwards to the walls. These were 10 cubits high. In the front of the portico were two pillars of brass, which were cast by Hiram, "a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali," whose "father was a man of Tyre," and who "came to king Solomon and wrought all his work." These two pillars of brass (1 Kings, vii. 14, 15.) were each 18 cubits high, and their circumference was 12 cubits; hence their diameter was 3.82 cubits. The chapiters, or capitals, were 5 cubits high; and one of them was decorated with lilies upon a net-work ground, and the other with pomegranates. From the representation (fig. 34.) here given, the reader must be struck with their resemblance to the columns of Egypt with their lotus leaves, and sometimes net-work. In short, the whole description would almost as well apply to a temple of Egypt as to one at Jerusalem. And this tends, Fig. 31. though slightly it is true, to show that the Phoenician workmen who were employed on the temple worked in the same style as those of Egypt.

53. The house of the forest of Lebanon was larger than the temple, having been 100 cubits in length, by 50 in breadth; it also had a portico, and from the description seems to have been similar in style.

54. Phoenician Architecture. That part of the great nation of Asia which settled on the coasts of Palestine, called in scripture Canaanites, or merchants, were afterwards by the Greeks called Phoenicians. Sidon was originally their capital, and Tyre, which afterwards became greater than the parent itself, was at first only a colony. From what we have said in a previous section on the walls of Mycene, it may be fairly presumed that their architecture partook of the Cyclopean style; but that it was much more highly decorated is extremely probable from the wealth of a people whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickers were the honourable of the earth. Besides the verses of Euripidès, which point to the style of Phoenician architecture, we have the authority of Lucian for asserting that it was Egyptian in character. Unfortunately all is surmise; no monuments of Phoenician architecture exist, and we therefore think it useless to dwell longer on the subject.

SECT. VI.

INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.

55. Whence the countries of India derived their architecture is a question that has occupied abler pens than that which we wield, and a long period has not passed away since the impression on our own mind was, that the monuments of India were not so old as those of Egypt. Upon maturer reflection, we are not sure that impression was false; but if the arts of a country do not change, if the manners and habits of the people have not varied, the admission of the want of high antiquity of the monuments actually in existence will not settle the point. The capitals and columns about Persepolis have a remarkable similarity to some of the Hindoo examples, and seem to indicate a common origin; indeed, it is our opinion, and one which we have not adopted without considerable hesitation, that though the existing buildings of India be comparatively modern, they are in a style older than that of the time of their erection. Sir William Jones, whose opinion seems to have been that the Indian temples and edifices are not of the highest antiquity, says (3rd Discourse), "that they prove an early connection between India and Africa. The pyramids of Egypt, the colossal statues described by Pausanias and others, the Sphinx and the Hermes Canis (which last bears a great resemblance to the Varáhávatár, or the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of a boar), indicate the style and mythology of the same indefatigable workmen who formed the vast excavations of Canáralı, the various temples and images of Buddha, and the idols which are continually dug up at Gayá or in its vicinity. The letters on many of these monuments appear, as I have before intimated, partly of Indian and partly of Abyssinian or Ethiopic origin; and all these indubitable facts may in duce no ill-grounded opinion that Ethiopia and Hindustan were peopled Fig. 35. A COLUMN OF or colonised by the same extraordinary race.' ." In a previous page (fig. 27.), the reader will find a Persepolitan column and capital; we place before him, in fig. 35., an example from the Indra Subba which much resembles it in detail, and at the Nerta Chabei at Chillambaram are very similar examples. Between the styles of Persepolis and Egypt a resemblance will be hereafter traced, and to such an extent, that there seems no reasonable doubt of a common origin. The monuments of India may be divided into two classes, the excavated and constructed; the former being that wherein a building has been hollowed, or, as it were, quarried out of the rock; the latter, that built of separate and different sorts of materials, upon a regular plan, as may be seen in those buildings improperly called pagodas, which ornament the enclosures of the sacred edifices, of

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THE INDRA SUBBA.

which they are component parts. The class first named seems to have interested travellers more than the last, from the apparent difficulty of execution; but on this account we are not so sure that they ought to create more astonishment than the constructed temple, except that, according to Daniel (Asiat. Res. vol. i.), they are hollowed in hard and compact granite. 56. The monuments which belong to the first class are of two sorts; those actually hollowed out of rocks, and those presenting forms of apparently constructed buildings, but which are. in fact, rocks shaped by human hands into architectural forms. Of the first sort are the caves of Elephanta and Ellora; of the last, the seven large pagodas of Mavalipowram. It will immediately occur to the reader that the shaping of rocks into forms implies art, if the forms be imposing or well arranged: so, if the hollowing a rock into well-arranged and well-formed chambers be conducted in a way indicating an acquaintance with architectural effect, we are not to assume that a want of taste must be consequent on the first sort merely because it cannot be called constructive architecture. And here we must observe, that we think the writer in the Encyclopédie Méthodique (art. Arch. Indienne) fails in his reasoning; our notion being simply this, that as far as respects these monuments, if they are worthy to be ranked as works of art, the means by which they were produced have nothing to do with the question. It must, however, be admitted, that what the architect understands by ordonnance, or the composition of a building, and the proper arrangement of its several parts, points which so much engaged the attention of the Greeks and Romans, will not be found in Indian architecture as far as our acquaintance with it extends. Conjectures infinite might be placed before the reader on the antiquity of this species of art, but they would be valueless, no certain data, of which we are aware, existing to lead him in the right road; and we must, therefore, be content with enumerating some of the principal works in this style. The caves at Ellora consist of several apartments; the plan of that called the Indra Subba (fig. 36.) is here given, to show the species of plan which these places

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exhibit; and fig. 37. is a view of a portion of the interior of the same. The group of temples which compose these excavations are as follow:

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57. The most celebrated excavated temple is that of Elephanta (fig. 38.), near Bombay,

of whose interior composition the reader may obtain a faint idea from the subjoined representation (fig. 39.). It is 130 ft. long, 110 ft. wide, and 14 ft. high. The ceiling is flat, and is apparently supported by four ranks of columns, about 9 ft. high, and of a balustral form. These stand on pedestals, about one third of the height of the columns themselves. A great portion of the walls is covered with colossal human figures, forty to fifty in number, in high relief, and distinguished by a variety of symbols, probably representing the attributes of the deities

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Fig. 38.

TEMPLE OF ELEPHANTA.

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that were worshipped, or the actions of the heroes whom they represented. At the end of the cavern there is a dark recess, about 20 ft. square, entered by four doors, each flanked by gigantic figures. "These stupendous works," says Robertson, "are of such high antiquity, that, as the natives cannot, either from history or tradition, give any information concerning the time in which they were executed, they universally ascribe the formation of them to the power of superior beings. From the extent and grandeur of these subterraneous mansions, which intelligent travellers compare to the most celebrated monuments of human power and art in any part of the earth, it is manifest that they could not have been formed in that stage of social life where men continue divided into small tribes, unaccustomed to the efforts of persevering industry." Excavations similar to those we have named are found at Canárah, in the Island of Salsette, near Bombay. In these there are four stories of galleries, leading in all to three hundred apartments. The front is formed by cutting away one side of the rock. The principal temple, 84 ft. long, and 40 ft. broad, is entered by a portico of columns. The roof is of the form of a vault, 40 ft. from the ground to its crown, and has the appearance of being supported by thirty pillars, octagonal in plan, whose capitals and bases are formed of elephants, tigers, and horses. The walls contain cavities for lamps, and are covered with sculptures of human figures of both sexes, elephants, horses, and lions. An altar, 27 ft. high and 20 ft. in diameter, stands at the further end, and over it is a dome shaped out of the rock. Though the sculptures in these caves are low in rank compared with the works of Greek and Etrurian artists, yet they are certainly in a style superior to the works of the Egyptians; and we infer from them a favourable opinion of the state of the arts in India at the period of their formation. "It is worthy of notice," observes the historian we have just quoted, 66 that although several of the figures in the caverns at Elephanta be so different from those now exhibited in the pagodas as objects of veneration, that some learned Europeans

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have imagined they represent the rites of a religion more ancient than that now esta

Fig. 40.

PAGODA OF CHILLAMBARAM.

blished in Hindostan; yet by the Hindoos themselves the caverns are considered as hallowed places of their own worship, and they still resort thither to perform their devotions, and honour the figures there, in the saine manner with those in their own pagodas." Mr. Hunter, who in the year 1784 visited the place, considers the figures there as representing deities who are still objects of worship among the Hindoos. One circumstance justifying this opinion is, that several of the most conspicuous personages in the groups at Elephanta are decorated with the zennur, the sacred string or cord peculiar to the order of Brahmins, an authentic evidence of the distinction of casts having been established in India at the time when these works were finished.

58. The structure of the earliest Indian temples was extremely simple. Pyramidal, and of large dimensions, they had no light but that which the door afforded; and, indeed, the gloom of the cavern seems to have led them to consider the solemn darkness of such a mansion sacred. There are ruins of this sort at Deogur and at a spot near Tanjore, in the Carnatic. In proportion, however, to the progress of the country in opulence and refinement, their sacred buildings became highly ornamented, and must be considered as monuments exhibiting a high degree of civilisation of the people by whom they were erected. Very highly finished pagodas, of great antiquity, are found in different parts of Hindostan, and particularly in its southern districts, where they were not subjected to the destructive fury of Mahometan zeal. To assist the reader in forming a notion of the style of the architecture whereof we are treating, we here place before him a diagram (fig. 40.) of part of the pagoda at Chillambaram, near Porto Novo, on the Coromandel coast; one which is, on account of its antiquity, held in great veneration. The monument would be perhaps more properly described as a cluster of pagodas, enclosed in a rectangular space 1332 ft. in length, and 936 ft. in width, whose walls are 30 ft. in height, and 7 ft. in thickness, cach side being provided with a highly decorated frustum of a pyramid over an entrance gateway. The large enclosure is subdivided into four subordinate ones, whereof the central one, surrounded by a colonnade and steps, contains a piscina or basin for purification. That on the southern side forms a cloister enclosing three contiguous temples called Chabei, lighted only by their doors and by lamps. The court on the west is also claustral, having in the middle an open portico, consisting of one hundred columns, whose roof is formed by large blocks of stone. The last is a square court with a temple and piscina, to which is given the name of the Stream of Eternal Joy. To the temple is attached a portico of thirty-six columns, in four parallel ranks, whose central intercolumniation is twice the width of those at the sides, and in the centre, on a platform, is the statue of the Bull Nundu. It is lighted artificially with lamps, which are kept constantly burning, and is much decorated with sculpture. The central inclosure, on its eastern side, has a temple raised on a platform, in length 224 ft., and in width 64 ft., having a portico in front, consisting of a vast number of columns 30 ft. high; at the end of it a square vestibule is constructed with four portals, one whereof in the middle leads to the sanctuary, named Nerta Chabei, or Temple of Joy and Eternity, the altar being at the end of it. The temple is much decorated with sculpture, representing the divinities of India. The pilaster fig. 41. is placed at the sides of the door of the Nerta Chabei, and is extremely curious; but the most singular object about the building is a chain of PILASTER FROM THE granite carved out of the rock, attached to the pilasters, and supported at four other points in the face of the rock so as to form festoons. The links are about 3ft. long, and the whole length of the chain is 146 ft. The pyramids

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Fig. 11.

NERTA CHABEL.

above mentioned, which stand over the entrances of the outer enclosure, rise from rectangular

Fig. 42.

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FAGODA AT TANJOKE.

whereof are 25 ft. high, and 4 ft. thick.

Fig. 43.

CHOULTRY AT MADURAH.

bases, and consist of several floors. The passage through them is level with the ground.

59. A very beautiful example of the Indian pagoda exists at Tanjore, which we nere insert (fig. 42.).

60. One of the largest temples known is that on the small island Seringham, near Trichinopoly, on the Coromandel coast. It is situate about a mile from the western extremity of the island, and is thus described by Sonnerat. It is composed of seven square enclosures, one within the other, the walls These enclosures are 350 ft. distant from one another, and each has four large gates with a high tower; which are placed, one in the middle of each side of the enclosure, and opposite to the four cardinal points. The outward wall is near four miles in circumference, and its gateway to the south is ornamented with pillars, several of which are simple stones, 33 ft. long, and nearly 5 ft. in diameter; and those which form the roof are still larger. In the inmost inclosures are the chapels. About half a mile to the east of Seringham, and nearer to the river Caveri than the Coleroon, is another large pagoda, called Jembikisma, but this has only one enclosure. The extreme veneration in which Seringham is held arises from a belief that it contains that identical image of the god Vishnu which used to be worshipped by Brahma.

61. We shall conclude this section with some observations on Choultry (or Inn) at Madurah (fig. 43.). Its effect is quite theatrical, and its perfect symmetry gives it the appearance of a work of great art, and of greater skill in composition than most other Indian works. Yet an examination of the details, and particularly of the system of corbelling over, destroys the charm which a first glance at it creates. In it, the ornaments which in Grecian architecture are so well applied and balanced, seem more the work of chance than of consideration. We here insert an external view

of the temple at this place (fig. 44.). The essential differences between Indian and Egyp

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tian architecture, in connection with the sculpture applied to them, have been well given in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, and we shall here subjoin them. In Egypt, the principal forms of the building and its parts preponderate, inasmuch as the hieroglyphics with which they are covered never interfere with the general forms, nor inJure the effect of the whole; in India, the principal form is lost in the ornaments which divide and decompose it. Egypt, that which is essential predominates; in India, you are lost in the multitude of

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