Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/205

 CHAP. VI. VIHARAS. 171 standing free ; but the case is different with the viharas. A court or hall surrounded with cells is not an imposing archi- tectural object. Where the court has galleries two or three storeys in height, and the pillars that support these are richly carved, it may attain an amount of picturesqueness we find in our old hostelries, or of that class of beauty that prevails in the courts of Spanish monasteries. Such was, I believe, the form many of the Indian structural viharas may have taken, but which could hardly be repeated in the rock ; and, unless some representations are discovered among the paintings or sculptures, we shall probably never know, though we may guess, what the original appearances may have been. There was, however, I believe, another form of Vihara even less capable of being repeated in the rock. It was pyramidal, and is the original of all the temples of southern India. Take, for instance, a description of the Sangharama mentioned both by Fah Hian and Hiuen Tsiang, 1 though neither of them, it must be confessed, ever saw it, which accounts in part for some absurdities in the description : "The building," says Fah-Hian, " has altogether five storeys. The lowest is shaped with elephant figures, and has 500 stone cells in it ; the second is made with lion shapes, and has 400 chambers ; the third is made with horse shapes, and has 300 chambers ; the fourth is made with ox shapes, and has 200 chambers ; and the fifth is made with dove shapes, and has 100 chambers in it" and the account given of it by Hiuen Tsiang is practically the same. At first sight, and especially in the earlier translations, this looks wild enough ; but if we understand by it that the several storeys were adorned with elephants, lions, horses, etc., we get a mode of decoration which began at Karle where a range of elephants adorns the lower storey, and was continued with variations to Halebid, where, as we shall see further on, all these five animals are, in the I3th century, superimposed upon one another exactly as here recounted. The woodcut (No. 89) on next page, taken from one of the raths at Mamallapuram or " Seven Pagodas," probably correctly represents such a structure, and I believe also the form of a great many ancient viharas in India. The diagram (No. 90) is intended to explain what probably were the internal arrange- ments of such a structure. As far as it can be understood from the rock-cut examples we have, the centre was occupied by halls of varying dimensions according to height, supported 1 Beal's ' Buddhist Records,' vol. i. Introd. p. 69, and vol. ii. pp. 2141". ; conf, Julien's ' Memoires,' tome ii. p. IO2. This monastery was probably at .Sri .Sailam, on the Krishna river. The present Hindu temple will be noticed at the end of Book III., chapter iv., p. 408.