Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/470

 416 DRAVIDIAN STYLE. BOOK III. their masters in this form of art. In the meanwhile it is curious to observe that the same king who built the chaultris (Wood- cuts Nos. 226, 227, and 228), built also this hall. The style of the one is as different from that of the other as Classic Italian from Mediaeval Gothic ; the one as much over ornamented as the other is too plain for the purposes of a palace, but both among the best things of their class which have been built in the country where they are found. The last dynasty of Tanjor was founded by Ekoji or Venkaji, a half brother of Sivaji, the great Maratha chief, during the decline of the Madura dynasty in 1674-1675. The palace was probably commenced shortly afterwards, but the greater part of its buildings belong to the i8th century, and some extend even into the iQth. It is not unlike the Madura palace in arrangement is, indeed, evidently copied from it nor very different in style ; but the ornamentation is coarser and in more vulgar taste, as might be expected from our knowledge of the people who erected it (Woodcut No. 242). In some of the apartments this is carried so far as to become almost offensive. One of the most striking peculiarities of the palace is the roof of the great hall externally. As you approach Tanjor, you see two great vimanas, not unlike each other in dimensions or outline, and at a distance can hardly distinguish which belongs to the great temple. On closer inspection, however, that of the palace turns out to be made up of dumpy pilasters and fat balusters, and ill-designed mouldings of Italian architecture, mixed up with a few details of Indian art ! A more curious and tasteless jumble can hardly be found in Calcutta or Lucknow. The palace buildings at Vijayanagar are much more detached and scattered than those either at Tanjor or Madura, but they are older, and probably represent only some of the detached and less important buildings of what existed previous to the sack of the city in 1565, when the Musalmans rased the chief buildings to the ground. 1 What still remains reproduces more nearly the style of a Hindu prince's civil buildings, before they fell completely under the sway of Moslim influence. The remains of the palace consists of a number of detached pavilions, baths, harems, and other buildings, that certainly were situated in gardens, and may, consequently, have had a unity we miss in their present state of desolation. One of these pavilions is represented in the next woodcut (No. 243). It is a fair specimen of that picturesque mixed style which arose from the mixture of the Saracenic and Hindu styles. 1 Briggs's translation of Ferishta's ' Mahomedan Power in India,' vol. iii. p. 131.