Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/310

 266 ARCHITECTURE IN THE HIMALAYAS. BOOK II. BHANIYAR OR BTNIAR. At a place near the remote village of Buniar or Bhaniyar, on the road between Ort and Naoshahra, there stands one of the best-preserved temples in the valley. During long ages of neglect, silt and mud had so accumulated as to half bury the place. It was, however, excavated a good many years ago by orders of the Maharaja, and hence its nearly perfect 151. View of Court of Temple at Buniar. (From a Photograph.) state. 1 Its dimensions are less than those of the temples last described, the court being only 145 ft. by 120 ft, but, except from natural decay of the stone, it is nearly perfect, and gives a very fair idea of the style of these buildings. The trefoiled arch, with its tall pediment, the detached column and its architrave, are as distinctly shown here as in any other existing example of a Kashmiri colonnade, and present all those quasi- classical features which we know were inherited from the neighbouring province of Gandhara. The central temple is small, only 26 ft. square over all ; the cell is 13^ ft. square inside with walls over 6 ft. thick, supported on a basement 4 ft. high, and its roof is now covered with wooden shingles ; but whether that was the original covering is not certain. Looking, however, at the central side-cell of the colonnade (Woodcut No. 151), temples. Loc. cit. pp. 282, 283, and plate 20 ; Cole, ' Illustrations of Ancient Buildings,' plates 28-35 ' con f- ' R&jatar- angini,' bk. v. verses 156-158, and 161. r Cole, 'Ancient Buildings,' p. 23, and plates 37 and 38. Another ruined temple, but far more decayed, is on the road between Buniir and Uri. Stein, ' Rajatarangini,' vol. ii. p. 404.