Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/359

 CHAP. II. ARCHES. There can be no doubt that the Hindus carried their horror of an arch to an excess which frequently led them to worse faults on the other side. In city walls for instance, where there is a superabundant abutment on either hand to counteract any thrust, the horizontal principle is entirely misplaced. If we take, for instance, one of the city gates at Vijayanagar (Woodcut No. 1 68), we cannot help perceiving that with much smaller stones 168. View of City Gateway, Vijayanagar. (From a Photograph.) and less trouble a far more stable construction could have been obtained, so long as the wall on either hand remained entire. What the Hindu feared was that if the wall were shattered, as we now find it, the arch would have fallen, though the horizontal layers still remain in their places. Instead of a continuous bracket like that shown in the last example, a more usual form, in modern times at least, is that of several detached brackets placed a little distance apart the one from the other. When used in moderation this is the more pleasing form of the two, and in southern India it is generally used with great success. In the north they are liable to exaggerate it, as in the gateway from Jhinjhuwada in Gujarat (Woodcut No. 169, p. 312), when it becomes unpleasing, though singularly characteristic of the style. 1 1 Other examples of the same style may be seen in the gateways of Dabhoi. Burgess and Cousens, 'The Antiquities of Dabhoi in Gujarat,' plates 10, 13, and 16.