cubic yards of rock, but, as the base of the temple is solid and the superstructure massive, it occupies in round numbers about one half of the excavated area, so that the question is simply this-whether it is easier to chip away 50,000 yards of rock, and shoot it to spoil (to borrow a railway term) down a hill-side, or to quarry 50,000 cubic yards of stone, remove it, probably, a mile at least to the place where the temple is to be built, and then to raise and set it. The excavating process would probably cost about one-tenth of the other. The sculpture and ornament would be the same in both instances, more especially in India, where buildings are always set up in block, and the carving executed in situ. Nevertheless the impression produced on all spectators by these monolithic masses, their unalterable character, and appearance of eternal durability, point to the process as one meriting more attention than it has hitherto received in modern times; and if any rock were found as uniform and as easily worked as the Indian amygdaloidal traps, we might hand down to posterity some more durable monument than many we are now erecting at far greater cost.

Before leaving the subject of southern temples, I must allude to another at Tanjore, which, at a distance, almost rivals in dimensions and outline the great pagoda (woodcut 58), of which it is evidently a copy. On a nearer inspection, however, it is found to be made up wholly of Italian details of the very worst class. The external cells are ornamented with Corinthian and Ionic pilasters, as badly designed as they are executed, alternating with ranges of balusters of the dumpiest and clumsiest forms. The whole is painted with a vulgarity which it is difficult to understand in a people who have shown such taste in earlier times, and so exquisite an eye for colour and detail. Such, however, are the effects of the miserable state of dependence to which they have been reduced, and such the results of an attempt to copy servilely a style utterly unsuited to their wants, and which they can neither understand nor appreciate. It is amusing to see another people trying this copying system. We see with half a glance how ludicrous the failure is with them; but while we so easily detect their speck, we utterly forget the beam that closes our own eyes.

Nevertheless, before the Hindus fell so low as this, their art went through another stage, not unproductive of beauty and elegance, and which might eventually have been elaborated into a style even surpassing their own more ancient forms. This new style is found in the buildings erected under the influence of the Mahometans, and adopts, to a certain extent, some of the more prominent forms of their architecture.

When the Mahometans first conquered India they imitated in their earlier mosques not only the details, but even the forms, of the Hindu architects, and their style in that country always bore strongly the impress of the land in which it was elaborated, still retaining its arched form, and a more daring construction than the Hindus had ever attempted. In process of time a complete reaction took place, and in their secular buildings at least, though scarcely ever in their temples, the Hindus began to adopt the arcades and vaults of their antagonists,

using them, however, in their own peculiar fashion, and making what may be called an amalgamation of two styles, rather than a mere copy of the other. Even if they had copied from the Mahometans, it would have been a very different thing from borrowing from another age or another clime that which had become antiquated, or was unsuitable. It was merely the adoption by one part of the inhabitants of a country of those forms which another and more energetic portion of its inhabitants had found best suited for their purposes.

In the south of India one of the most pleasing specimens of this style is a portion of the palace of Madura, commenced by Trimul Naik, and completed by his successors, now utterly fallen to ruin and decay. The part most illustrative of the new style is the great Hall of Audience, shown in the annexed woodcut; but other parts and other

halls show the same characteristics with more or less distinctness. It is not known by whom this hall was erected; at first sight it might be supposed improbable that the builder of the choultry illustrated above (woodcuts 63, 64) could adopt so different a style in his palace. Innovation, however, in secular affairs, is a totally different thing from novelty in things sacred, in India, as well as elsewhere; and the consequence is, that the change never reached the temples, though it was common in palaces in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

I should be inclined to date the hall rather from the beginning of the eighteenth than in the seventeenth century; but without seeing it, it is hazardous to venture even a conjecture on such a subject.

To these points I shall have occasion to revert hereafter, when speaking of the styles of the north. In the mean while our limits wam us to take leave of a style well deserving of more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it. Its historic interest is very great : the buildings to which it gave rise are remarkable for their extent and number. It exhibits also great beauty of detail, especially in the older instances. The grandeur of some of its forms, and the general purpose-like attainment of the ends aimed at, give rise to effects as pleasing as they are startling, and afford hints well worthy of the study of any of those who wish to master the theory or practice of the art of architecture. For when a nation labours perhaps through thousands of years to attain a given object, small and mean as the individual efforts may be, the accumulated results attain importance such as no individual capacity ever could realize, and such as can only be reached by the united efforts of millions exerted through a long series of ages.

FROM the earliest age at which tradition first sheds even the dimmest light on Indian history to the present hour, the valley of the Ganges has always been the richest and most populous part of the country. Here the first strangers settled, bringing with them the civilization of the West; here that civilization was elaborated into those peculiar institutions that still so strongly subsist after the lapse of thousands of years. It was in this valley that those heroes lived whose exploits are celebrated by the Indian epic and dramatic poets, whose works are now becoming familiar to us; and here it was that the religions of Buddha and Brahma arose, which still influence at least a fourth of the whole human race. Here, therefore, we naturally look for monuments to illustrate the manners and customs of those bygone ages; but we look in vain. It has been already said that there are no certain traces of ancient Hindu architecture, that is to say, of anything previous to the spread of Buddhism. In Northern India, with the few exceptions to be shortly noticed, there are no genuine Hindu buildings at all earlier than the time of the Mahometan conquest.

1.

We might be inclined to attribute this to the idol fanes of the vanquished race having been destroyed by the religious zeal of the conquerors. But this explanation is inconsistent with the fact that several Buddhist monuments remain in this very district, and many of the Jains, converted for the most part into mosques, though perfectly easy to be recognised. The phenomenon, therefore, can only be

See p. 5.

accounted for by the assumption, confirmed as it is by other evidence, that the Arian race, which prevailed in this part of India from a very early period, was not in the habit of building temples or durable edifices of any kind.

It is only in the remote province of Orissa, or in the jungles of Rajpootana, that any examples are found of early Hindu buildings. Orissa, being on the boundary of the Tamul races, and as little influenced by Arian prejudices as can well be conceived, is covered with temples, some of which are of great magnificence; and though the province is remote, and always was comparatively poor, it possesses now more temples than the whole of the rest of Bengal. In Rajpootana, which, if tradition may be trusted, was far more influenced by the Huns-within at least the temple-building age-than by the Arian race, we find the same phenomenon. The little hill-fort, for instance, of Chittore has its brow garnished with more temples, and more architectural magnificence, than any of the great capital cities that once adorned the fertile plains watered by the sacred stream of the Ganges.

ORISSAN TEMPLES.

So remote is the province of Orissa, that it is with the greatest difficulty we can glean even such scanty notices of its history as are usually available in Eastern countries. We know, however, from the inscription at Dauli, that Asoka sent hither his missionaries and published his edicts here; and it is evident from the caves on the Udyagiri that Buddhism did exist here from that period till some time after the Christian era. We know also that the famous Tooth-relic was preserved in this province up to the beginning of the fourth century, in a temple which stood where the far-famed temple of Juggernath now stands,' whose worship seems to be only a corrupt Buddhism, so overlaid with local Fetichism as scarcely to be recognisable.

It seems very doubtful whether, in the beginning of the fourth century, the kings of Orissa were Buddhist or Brahmanical-they wavered apparently between the two. About that time the succession was disturbed by an invasion of barbarians, who retained the country for 146 years. After this the original family, or at least the original race, regained power, and it is with them that our architectural history

commences.

3

The earliest authentic building that we have of this race, or indeed of the Hindu religion in Hindostan, is the great temple of Bobaneswar, built by Lelat Indra Kesari, A.D. 657; and from this time to the present day the series is tolerably complete, showing a gradual progress of style

The curious accounts given by Fa Hian in the beginning of the 5th century of the procession of the Tooth from its chapel at Anuradhapoora to Mehentele, and its return after a certain sojourn there, are so exactly transcripts of the annual festival of the Rath Jattra of Juggernath, that there can be no

doubt but that the latter is merely a copy, a purely Buddhist peculiarity, and not at all belonging to Hinduism. See Foe Koni Ki, pp. 17 and 335.

2 J. A. S. B., vol. vi. p. 856 et seq.

3 Asiatic Researches, vol. xv. p. 263 et seq.