Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/240

 206 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. times. 1 The architectural style is plain, and the sculptures comparatively few ; and as they have been described else- where they need not occupy us here. And for the twenty-eight excavations at Mahad, about sixty at Karhad, and other smaller groups in the Konkan and Dekhan, as they present no special features, we must also refer to the detailed accounts in the same works. No important Buddhist remains have yet been discovered in the south of the peninsula, and the rapid manner in which Hiuen Tsiang passes through these countries, and the slight mention he makes of Buddhist establishments render it some- what uncertain what important establishments belonging to that sect then existed in Dravida-de^a. Yet we gather from him that Buddhists as well as Jains must, at one time, have been very numerous there, though the former had probably lost much of their influence by the 7th century. Their viharas and temples, being usually of brick, would become the spoil of neighbouring towns and villages for building materials wherever the Buddhists ceased to frequent them, and all traces of them have long since dis- appeared. Negapattam, on the coast, 170 miles south from Madras, was the great port of Tanjor and the Kavert delta, and was noted as a seat of Buddhist worship. We learn that a Buddhist temple here was endowed by Rajendra Chola I. in 1006 A.D., and that it had been built by one "Chula- manavaram King of Kidaram or Kataha" possibly in south Burma or Siam. And in a later grant Kulottunga Chola I., in 1090, made gifts to at """" least two Buddhist temples Ancient Buddhist Tower at Negapattam. i 1-1, T> (From a sketch by Sir Walter Elliot.) nere > Whilst a .Burmese in- scription of the i$th century mentions a visit to Negapattam by some Buddhist priests from Pegu. 116. 1 ' Inscriptions from the Cave Temples of Western India,' etc. pp. 3-22 ; ' Indian Antiquary,' vol. vii. pp. 253-257 ; ' Cave Temples,' pp. 204-209, and plate 5, fig. i, and plate 7, fig. I ; 'Archaeological Survey of Western India,' vol. iv. pp. 12-18, and plate 8, and the inscriptions at pp. 84-88,