Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/222

 i8o CIVIL ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VI. for extent of shadow and richness of detail surpass any similar ornaments in India, either in ancient or modern buildings. The lower cornice is the usual sloping entablature, almost universal in such buildings. This was adopted apparently 364. View from the Central Pavilion in the Palace at Dig. (From a Photograph.) because it took the slope of the curtains, which almost invari- ably hang beneath its projecting shade, and which, when drawn out, seem almost a continuation of it. The upper cornice, which was horizontal, is peculiar to Dig, and seems designed to furnish an extension of the flat roof which in Eastern palaces is usually considered the best apartment of the house ; but whether designed for this or any other pur- pose, it adds singularly to the richness of the effect, and by the double shadow affords a relief and character seldom ex- ceeded even in the East. Generally speaking, the bracket arcades of Dig are neither so rich nor so appropriate as the bold bracket capitals of the older styles. That the bracket is almost exclusively an original Indian form of capital can, I think, scarcely be doubted ; but the system was carried much further by the Mughals, especially during the reign of Akbar, than it had ever been carried by its