Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/436

 DRAVIDIAN STYLE. BOOK III. more than 500 ft., and even the nave of St Peter's is only 600 ft. from the door to the apse. Here the side corridors are almost 700 ft. long, and open into transverse galleries as rich in detail as themselves. These, with the varied devices and modes of lighting, produce an effect that is not equalled certainly anywhere in India. The side corridors are generally free from figure-sculpture, and consequently, from much of the vulgarity of the age to which they belong, and, though narrower, produce a more pleasing effect. The central corridor leading from the inner enclosure is adorned on one side by portraits of the Setupati rajas of Ramnad in the i/th century, and opposite them, of their ministers. Even they, however, would be tolerable, were it not that within the last few years they have been painted with a vulgarity that is inconceivable on the part of the descendants of those who built this fane. Not only they, however, but the whole of the architecture has first been dosed with repeated coats of whitewash, so as to take off all the sharpness of detail, and then painted with blue, green, red, and yellow washes, so as to disfigure and destroy its effect to an extent that must be seen to be believed. Nothing can more painfully prove the degradation to which the population is reduced than this profanity. No upper class, and no refinement, now remains, and the priesthood are sunk into a state of debasement. Assuming, however, for the nonce, that this painting never had been perpetrated still the art displayed here would be very inferior to that of such a temple as, for instance, Halebid in Mysore, to be described further on. The perimeter, however, of that temple is only 700 ft. ; here we have corridors extending to 4000 ft, carved on both sides. It is the immensity of the labour here displayed that impresses us, much more than its quality, and that, combined with a certain picturesqueness and mystery, does produce an effect which is not surpassed by any other temple in India, and by very few elsewhere. But for the wilful destruction of the inscriptions (less than fifty years ago), we might have had the whole history of this temple. 1 The central shrines are built of a dark hard lime- 1 The Pandaram or manager of the temple raised a suit against the Zamindar of Ramnad to deprive him of the hereditary right of patronage and super- vision of the temple. It was conducted on the Pandaram's part by one Apparu Pillai, who destroyed the old inscriptions and forged others, inserting them in the walls, and then produced copies and translations of them as evidence against the claims of the Ramnad Setupatis. The suit was appealed to the Privy Council, but, on such evidence, was given in favour of the forgers, and the Zamindars were deprived of their right to appoint the Dharmakartas or have any share in the management of the temple which their ancestors built and had so richly endowed.