Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/386

 338 DRAVIDIAN STYLE. BOOK III. for gopurams or gateways. The roof has a straight ridge, adorned at the ends by Saiva tri-mlas, and similar emblems 194. Ganera Rath, M^mallapuram. (From a Photograph.) crowned the dormer windows. The ridge was ornamented by nine small pinnacles, which also continue to be employed. Though entering in the side, this temple was never intended to be pierced through. On the back wall of the verandah is an inscription in old and very florid characters, dedicating the shrine to Siva by King Atyantakama- Ranajaya, 1 now identified with Rajasimha Pallava of the end of the 7th century. What interests us most here, however, is that the square raths are the originals from which all the vimanas in southern India were copied, and continued to be copied nearly unchanged to a very late period. Woodcut No. 195, for instance, repre- sents one from Madura, erected in the i8th century. It is changed, it is true, and the cells and some of the earlier features are hardly recognisable ; but the wonder rather is that eleven centuries should not have more completely obliterated all traces of the original. There is nothing, however, in it which cannot be easily recognised in intermediate examples, and 1 Hultzsch's 'South Indian Inscriptions,' vol. i. pp. 4-8.