Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/181

 CHAP. V. GREAT CHAITYA AT KARLE. 147 Mahayana school ; the larger pairs of figures, however, are earlier and may be original. The later inscriptions are of the time of the Andhra king Pulumavi (dr. A.D. 150). The presence of the woodwork is an additional proof, if any were wanted, that there were no arches of construction in any of these Buddhist buildings. There neither were nor are any in any Indian building anterior to the Muhammadan conquest, and very few indeed in any Hindu building afterwards. To return, however, to Karle, the outer porch is considerably wider than the body of the building, being 52 ft. wide by 15 ft. deep, and is closed in front by a screen composed of two stout octagonal pillars, without either base or capital, supporting what is now a plain mass of rock, but which was once ornamented by a wooden gallery forming the principal ornament of the facade. Above this a dwarf colonnade or attic of four columns between pilasters admitted light to the great window, and this again was surmounted by a wooden cornice or ornament of some sort, though we cannot now restore it, since only the mortices remain that attached it to the rock. In advance of this screen stands the lion-pillar, in this instance a plain shaft with sixteen flutes, or rather faces, surmounted by a capital not unlike that at Kesariya (Woodcut No. 7), but at Karle supporting four lions instead of one, and, for reasons given above (p. 60), they seem almost certainly to have supported a chakra or Buddhist wheel (Woodcut No. 8). A similar pillar probably stood on the opposite side, but it had either fallen or been removed to make way for the little Hindu temple that now occupies its place. The absence of the wooden ornaments of the external porch, as well as our ignorance of the mode in which this temple was finished laterally, and the porch joined to the main temple, prevents us from judging what the effect of the front would have been if belonging to a free-standing building. But the proportions of such parts as remain are so good, and the effect of the whole so pleasing, that there can be little hesitation in ascribing to such a design a tolerably high rank among architectural compositions. Of the interior we can judge perfectly, and it certainly is as solemn and grand as any interior can well be, and the mode of lighting the most perfect one undivided volume of light coming through a single opening overhead at a very favourable angle, and falling directly on the dagaba or principal object in the building, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity. The effect is considerably heightened by the closely set thick columns that divide the aisles from the nave, as they suffice to prevent the boundary walls from ever being seen, and,