Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/343

 CHAP. II. SIKHIM. 2 95 with a circumference of 600 ft. at the base, and is built in five stepped terraces with recessed angles, on the plan of the vimanas of Indian temples. Above these is a circular drum of one storey, and over it a smaller square one surmounted by a spire of thirteen great rings of gilt copper crowned by a chhattra canopy of the same material. In the different storeys are numerous shrines to the different Buddhas, which are reached by inside stairs, and the terrace roofs of the successive storeys form a series of chaityanganas 1 for the circumambulation of the different groups of cells. From Sikhim, which is overrun by Lamas, and has borrowed its architecture from Tibet, we may gain further acquaintance with the characteristic features of the style. The view (Wood- cut No. 163) of the doorway of the temple at Tashiding is 163. Doorway in the Temple at Tashiding. (From Dr. Hooker's ' Himalayan Journals,' vol. i. p. 319.) curious as showing a perseverance in the employment of sloping jambs, which we do not meet with in the plains of India, but is usual in Tibet. 2 It will be recollected that this feature is nearly universal in the Bihar and early western caves (Woodcuts Nos. 55, 58, and 64), but there we lose it. It may have con- 1 This term is used among Buddhists for the pradakshinapath or terrace. Waddell's ' Lhasa and its Mysteries,' pp. 217, 229-232. 2 E. Schlagintweit's ' Buddhism in Tibet,' pp. 188%, and Milloue, ' Bod- Youl ou Tibet,' pp. 279ffg.