Page:A Handbook of Indian Art.djvu/107

Rh inspired the master-builder to give a permanent form to the royal sikhara such as Asoka had given to the stūpa. Thus, when the sikhara first appears in Indian architecture in brick and stone, the form of it was fully developed, for it was coeval with the beginning of Aryan rule in India.

The form of the sikhara lent itself well for enshrining the image of Vishnu in his especial character as the Upholder of the Heavens (Pl. LX, ), for then he is always standing rigidly upright, his body forming the mystic Mount Merū round which the universe revolves. He is armed with the weapons of an Aryan chieftain, and on his high-peaked crown, the form of which is repeated by the sikhara, flash the three sun jewels, marking sunrise, noon, and sunset. Through the doorway facing east, or the window above it usually formed like the great window of the Buddhist stūpa-house, the light of the morning sun streams in upon the image when Lakshmi, the bright goddess of the day, rises from the cosmic ocean to greet her lord and throws herself upon his breast.

Fergusson assumed the sikhara temple to have been borrowed by the Aryans from some aboriginal fetish shrine of a type which no longer existed. But in reality it is the type of Indian architectural design which retains most clearly the mark of its Aryan associations; and its history, if it were completely known, would be