Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/348

 300 ARCHITECTURE IN THE HIMALAYAS. BOOK II. architrave-bearing capital in a graceful and pleasing manner. We all know the manner in which the Ionic and Corinthian capitals effect this ; pleasingly, it is true, but not without effort and some little clumsiness, which it required all the skill and taste of classical architects to conquer. To effect this object, the Hindus placed a vase on the top of their column, the bowl of which was about the same diameter as that of the pillar on which it was placed, or rather larger ; but such an arrangement was weak, because the neck and base of the vase were necessarily smaller than the shaft of the pillar, and both were still circular. To remedy these defects, they designed a very beautiful class of foliaged ornament, which appears to grow out of the vase, on each of its four faces, and, falling downwards, strengthens the hollows of the neck and foot of the vase, so as to give them all the strength they require, and at the same time to convert the circular form of the shaft into the required square for the abacus of the capital. The Hindus, of course, never had sufficient ability or constructive skill to enable them to produce so perfect a form as the Corinthian or Ionic capitals of the Greeks or Romans ; but it is probable that if this form were taken up at the present day, a capital as beautiful as either of these might even now be produced. It is, indeed, almost the only suggestion that Indian architecture seems to offer for European use. It is by no means clear when this form of capital was first introduced. It first appears, but timidly it must be confessed, in such Buddhist caves as were excavated after the end of the 2nd century : as, for instance, in the Sri Yajna cave at Nasik (Woodcut No. 105) ; in the courtyard of the VLrwakarma, at Elura (Woodcut No. 83) ; and in some of the later caves at Ajanta the twenty-fourth for instance. It is found at Eran (Woodcut No. 1 66), among some fragments that I believe to be of the age of the Guptas, about A.D. 400, and it is currently employed in the middle group of Hindu caves at Elura, such as the Ravana-ka Khai, and other caves of that age, say about A.D. 600. It afterwards became frequent, almost universal, with the Jains, down to the time of the Muhammadan conquest. The following representation of one (Woodcut No. 167), from a half column of a temple in Orissa, shows it in a skeleton form, and therefore more suited to explain its construction than a fuller capital would do. On its introduction, the bell-shaped or Persepolitan capital seems to have gone out of fashion, and does not again appear in Indian art. To return from this digression : there can be no doubt that the temple of Vaidyanatha is dedicated to Siva, not only from the presence of the bull in front of it, in a pavilion of the same