from the oldest to the most modern-slow it must be confessed, but still sufficient to enable a practised eye always to detect at least the century in which any monument was raised.

The annexed elevation (No. 70) will explain the peculiarities of

these temples, which are all built nearly on the same plan. They consist in the first place of a great tower or vimana, in the centre of which, as in those of southern India, is the cell, a cubical apartment containing the image. No light is admitted to this except by the door, and this is, in all great temples at least, preceded by a square porch or mantapa, with a door on each face; three opening towards the court, one to the cell. Other porches sometimes precede this one, but they are always detached buildings, or, if connected, it is only in a slight or temporary manner.

It will be observed that the vimana is a very differently formed building from those we have been describing as existing in the south.

It is no longer a pyramid in outline, and consisting of a definite number of stories, crowned by a dome or dagoba; the outline here is always curvilinear, the divisions vertical, and no trace of stories exists in any example I am acquainted with, much less of the cells which give so distinct a peculiarity to the southern temples. The mode, too, of crowning the summit, though slightly domical in appearance, can never have been by a dome of construction, nor derived from the same original as those that crown the temples in the south. Possibly it is taken from the Buddhist umbrella ornament, the original, as we have seen, of the spire or tee. Possibly it came in the first instance from some projecting form of wooden or metallic roofing. Nor can the other characteristics of this style of architecture be traced with any certainty to their origin. Whatever it was, all the transformations were gone through, and the style was as complete as it now is, when the great temple of Bobaneswar was built, no change having taken place since then, except in detail; and we must, therefore, look either for some earlier example, or some cognate style, if we would attempt to trace it to its source.

Some of these towers-such for instance as the great one at Bobaneswar; that of the Temple of Juggernath, built 1198, and the now ruined one of the Black Pagoda, erected in 1241-reached the height of 170 to 180 ft. At Bobaneswar alone more than 100 of these temples still exist, ranging from 50 or 60 ft. to 150 ft.-- their proportions being very similar to those of the temple represented in the last woodcut (No. 70).

The porches of the great temples are nearly all similar to that of the Black Pagoda, at once the richest and the only one easily accessible to Europeans. It is a square building, about 60 ft. from angle to angle, and the perpendicular part about the same in height. On each face is a projecting doorway very richly ornamented, and the whole walls are covered with sculpture of an elaborate minuteness, only rivalled by that of Boro Buddor, though singularly different in character; this being, as far as the human figures are concerned, obscene in the extreme--while not the remotest trace of anything of the sort can be detected in any Buddhist or Jaina sculpture. Above the perpendicular part rises a roof in three stages, consisting of five or six projecting ledges of stone, the facets of which are all most elaborately carved with processions, or scenes from the chace or agricultural life. Between each series is a range of caryatides, but not a trace of cells, nor of the peculiar ornaments of the south. The whole is crowned by an inverted lotus-like dome-formed termination of singular grace and beauty. Internally it is a plain square apartment, measuring rather more than 40 ft. each way; the roof being formed of projecting stones to about the height of the first series of ledges; here wroughtiron beams about 8 in. square were placed across. On them a false ceiling of immense stones laid from side to side, and above this another similar ceiling exists at the next level. It seems also that a lower one once existed, at least the floor is encumbered by a mass of ruins that could not have come from the lower ceiling, which has

only partially fallen, though it is difficult to guess how stones of the required length could have been either raised or supported.

Sometimes the porch consists of a small portico of two or more pillars; but this arrangement is only found in the smallest and most modern temples, the style being essentially astylar, or devoid of pillars of any sort.

The great temples are all surrounded by square courts, enclosed by high walls, perfectly plain externally, but internally ornamented no doubt by cloisters or colonnades, the precise character of which it is difficult to determine, as the Orissans are singularly jealous of admitting Europeans to their sacred precincts, and at the Black Pagoda and other desecrated shrines the enclosure has generally disappeared.

TEMPLES IN UPPER INDIA.

The temples found in the upper provinces of India are all smaller than the great temples of Orissa, and utterly insignificant in size as compared with those of southern India; still they are elegant in design, and, though few in number, they are almost the only landmarks we have to guide us through the dark labyrinth of Indian history in the middle ages.

One of the most elegant of these is the now desecrated temple of Barrolli, situated in a wild and romantic spot, near the falls of the Chumbul, whose distant roar in the still night is the only sound that breaks the silence of the solitude that surrounds them. The principal temple, represented in the woodcut No. 71, was erected probably in the eighth or ninth century, and is one of the few of that age now known which were originally dedicated to Siva. Its general outline is identical with that of the Orissan temples. But instead of the enclosed porch, or mantapa, it has here a pillared portico of great elegance, whose roof reaches half way up the temple, and is sculptured with a richness and complexity of design that is almost unrivalled even in those days of patient prodigality of labour. It will be observed in the plan that the dimensions are remarkably small, and the temple is barely 60 ft. high, so that its merit consists entirely in its shape and proportions, and in the elegance and profusion of the ornament that covers it.

In front of the temple is a detached porch, here called a Chaöri, or nuptial hall (the same word I believe as Choultry in the south), in which tradition records the marriage of a Hoon (Hun) prince to a Rajpootni bride, for which purpose it is said to have been erected;1 but whether this is so or not, it is one of the finest examples of those detached halls known in the north. We miss here the octagonal dome of the Jains, which would have given elegance and relief to its ceiling as well as variety to the spacing of the columns, and to the width of the aisles. These peculiarities were seldom if ever copied by the Hindus, but they seem to have attempted to gain sufficient relief to their otherwise monotonous arrangement of columns by breaking up the external outline of the plan of the mantapa, and by ranging the aisles diagonally across the building, instead of placing them parallel to the sides. In one instance, as Chandravati, not far from the last described, something more artistic has been attempted, as may be seen by the annexed plan, No. 73. It is older probably by some centuries than that at Barrolli, and, though sadly ruined, is the most elegant

Tod's Annals of Rajastan, vol. ii. p. 712.

specimen of columnar architecture (so far as I know) in Upper India.'

The most elegant part of it is the roof, the central square having been covered with a quasi dome, on the principle shown in p. 74, the side compartments by large slabs deeply recessed, and covered with sculpture of the most singular elegance.

The whole arrangement, however, of this portico may be said to be exceptional-the Barrolli one being by far the most usual-and is carried to even greater extent in some of the caves; that at Elephanta, for instance, is only an amplification of it. The Dhumnar cave at Ellora (woodcut No. 74) closely resembles that at Elephanta in most respects, but is older and finer. It is 150 ft. in width, and its plan is that of a portico of 52 pillars; but being cut in the rock, four are omitted to make way for a vimana, which should have been placed externally, as at Barrolli; for the same reason also 12 of the outside pillars here become pilasters from the nature of the situation in

which the building is placed. It is nevertheless the largest portico of its class I know of, no built example reaching anything like its size.

In more modern times,

though the temples generally retain something of the same form, yet the tendency is always to make the upper part more slender, and more in the form of a spire than of a tower, and to ornament it by grouping around it smaller models of spires, as we before noticed in speaking of the Pegue Pagoda. This is sometimes carried to

74. Dhumnar Lena Cave at Ellora. From Daniell's Views in Hindostan. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

such an extent, and with such a minute elaboration of detail, as is

I See Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan, pl. 6, from which the woodcut is taken. See also Tod's Annals of Rajasthan,

vol. ii. The plates are not numbered; the best, however, is the one representing two slabs of the roof of this porch.

I