Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/420

Rh 396 A II C II I T E C T U 11 E [INDIAN. exhibit a building as large as most cathedrals. It has the great number of 20 domes, varying from 36 feet to 24 feet in diameter, and supported by 420 columns. Like most architectural peoples, the Jains were also fond of tower-building. The Jaya Sthamba, a tower of victory erected by Khumbo Rana, to commemorate the defeat of Mohammed of Malwa, in 1439, is nine stories high, the two topmost stories being open. The general outline is not iinlike that of an Italian campanile, with pilasters at the angles, and an overhanging corbelled top. It is richly ornamented from bottom to apex, and affords a very favour able idea of Indian art. Hindu architecture has been divided into that of the Aryan or Sanscrit races of North India, that of the South or of the Tamul races, and that prevalent in the Panjab and Cashmere. Of the first and last we have compara- Fio. 31. Temple at Tiravalur, near Tanjore. lively little knowledge, but South Hindu work is treated of at great length by Ram Raz, 1 a native author. The accompanying view of the temple at Tiravalur (fig. 31), FIG. 32. Temple at Tanjore. 1 &quot;We are told by Ram Raz that many treatises on architecture, some say sixty-four, existed in India. The collection he calls the Sllpa Sdstra Of these he mentions that the most perfect is the , of which forty-one chapters were in his possession. lie which measures 945 by 700 feet, is from his work on Fio. 33. Hall in Palace, Madura. Hindu Architecture. The remains of the buildings are numerous, as the Tamul races were perhaps the greatest temple builders in the world ; and the whole subject has been so well elucidated by the author last referred to, that its principles may be considered to be clearly ascertained and settled. The great pagoda at Tanjore (fig. 32), by far the grandest temple in India, resting on a base S3 feet square, rises in fourteen stories to a height of nearly 200 feet. The interior represented in fig. 33 a hall in the palace at Madura illustrates a comparatively recent style. The architecture of the north-east is known chiefly from the draw- ings in Vigne s Travels in Cashmere, and in General Cunningham s ,,. , . . . Memoir to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The temple of Martund (fig. 34), reduced from the latter work by Mr Fergusson, shows a cloistered court surrounded by pillars and cells, and entered by a porch. In the middle of this is a temple with a species of naos and pronaos. But the most curious feature is ;i series of doors with acute pediments over them shaped very much like Gothic gablets, and containing trefoil arches. A similar feature occurs (fig. 35) at Pandrethan, in a temple built about 1000 A.D., or 250 years later than Martund. It seems by no means improbable that these, pointed domes,

Fid. 34. Temple of Martuml ; plan. also cites several others, one of which he call.s Casyapa. In an epitome of the M&nasAra he states that the first chapter treats of the various measures in use in the country : the second describes the sthapati, or architect the siitrayruhi, or measurer, probably the surveyor or clerk of works, and then trie various builders ; whila others treat of pillars, bases and pedestals, halls, and the Vimanu or temple itself.