Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/250

 2l6 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK 1. Lombard architecture, where pillars were placed on animals and monsters ; and a similar practice was also long prevalent in Dravidian architecture. 1 Structurally the architecture of the age, we may suppose, would share in the mixed character of these sculptured representations. But the evidence may not be quite decisive ; a stupa, such as the best preserved at 'Alt Masjid,for example, affords but little aid in recovering the style of temples or other structures. What we see represented in the sculptures, together with such structural fragments as remain to us must be our chief guides. It is not difficult to restore, approximately, the front of the cells in these monasteries, from the numerous representations of them found among the ruins, where they are used as conventional frames for sculptures. It probably was owing to the fact that their fronts may have been adorned with paintings representing scenes from the life of Buddha, or emblems of various sorts, that these miniature repre- sentations of them were used to convey the same design in sculpture. These 123. Conventional Elevation of the Fa ? ade of a gable - end shaped panels Cell from Jamalgarhi. were fixed on four sides of the domes of the smaller stupas at least, and whilst they may present the general features of the facades of the more highly decorated cells, it is not to be supposed that any of them were so richly sculptured (Woodcut No. I23). 2 The form of the wooden framework which filled the upper . 1 Fergusson, 'Ancient and Mediaeval Architecture,' 3rd ed., pp. 188, 593, 594. 2 Conf. ' Buddhist Art in India ' (Eng. transl.), p. 156, fig. 107 : Foucher's ' L'Art Greco- Bouddhique du Gandhara,' pp. 183-185, figs. 70-72.