Page:A Handbook of Indian Art.djvu/180

98, "those for drinking and weeping," servants' rooms, rooms for keeping and grinding corn, and latrines were to be on the southern side. The armoury, guard-house, gymnasium, storeroom, and study were to be on the north. The court-house and record-room on the north, and the stables on the south.

The council-house should be built of two or three stories, with pavilions on the roof. It should be beautiful and accessible from all directions, with a central hall double the width of the side-rooms, be provided with fountains, musical instruments, clocks, ventilating apparatus, mirrors and pictures. Dwelling-houses for the Ministers, Members of Council, and officials were to be built separately on the north and east.

There are many circumstances which may account for the complete disappearance of the buildings where the great kings of ancient and mediæval India lived and held their court besides the fact that religious sentiment did not protect the deserted palace of an extinct dynasty from spoliation, either by Hindu or Musalman. Unlike the temples and monasteries which were carved in the living rock or built of imperishable materials to consecrate the holy place where they stood, the sites of royal cities were frequently changed owing to political disturbances or the exigencies of warfare. Kings and dynasties disappeared, but the immortal gods remained for ever. There was a certain fitness in the unwritten laws of the king's craftsmen