Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/210

 1 70 CIVIL ARCHITECTURE, BOOK VI. native states, especially in Rajputana. These are seldom designed with much reference to architectural symmetry or effect, but are nevertheless always picturesque and generally most ornamental objects in the landscape where they are found. As a rule, they are situated on rocky eminences, jutting into or overhanging lakes or artificial pieces of water, which are always pleasing accompaniments to buildings of any sort in that climate ; and the way they are fitted into the rocks, or seem to grow out of them, frequently leads to the most picturesque combinations. Sometimes their bases are fortified with round towers or bastions, on whose terraces the palace stands ; and even when this is not the case, the basement is generally built up solid to a considerable height, in a manner that gives a most pleasing effect of solidity to the whole, how- ever light the superstructure may be, and often is. If to these natural advantages you add the fact that the high caste Hindu is almost incapable of bad taste, and that all these palaces are exactly what they profess to be, without any affectation of pretending to be what they are not, or of copying any style, ancient or modern, but that best suited for their purposes it will not be difficult to realise what pleasing objects of study these Rajput palaces really are. At the same time it will be easily understood how difficult it must be in such a work as this to convey any adequate idea of their beauty ; without plans explaining their arrangements, and architectural details of their interior, neither their elegance nor appropriateness can be judged of. A palace is not like a temple a simple edifice of one or two halls or cells, almost identical with hundreds of others ; but a vast congeries of public and private apartments grouped as a whole more for convenience than effect. Few of the palaces of India have escaped the fate of that class of edifice all the world over. Either they must be deserted and left to decay, which in India means rapid oblitera- tion, or they must be altered and modified to suit the require- ments of subsequent occupants, till little if anything remains of the original structure. This fate, so far as is known, has overtaken all the royal abodes that may have existed before the dark ages ; so much so, indeed, that no trace of them has been found anywhere. Even after that we look in vain for anything important before the I3th century. At Chitorgadh, for instance, where one of the earliest Rajput dynasties was established, there are buildings that bear the name of the Palace of the Mori, also known as Ratnasingh's, but so altered, remodelled and ruined as to be unrecognisable as such. At Chitor no building of this class can with certainty be