Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/441

 CHAP. I. MONASTERIES. 369 central hall which is enclosed with double aisles all round covered over by the two other roofs. Virtually there is only one room in a Burmese Kyaung, at the east end ; and next to the Pyatthat is the Pongyi's quarter, where he receives visitors, teaches in the school and sleeps ; at the west end are the students' quarters and the store-rooms, and the school-room, if it may be so termed, is in the central hall. 1 These many-storeyed kyaungs, with the tall seven-storeyed spires (shown in Woodcuts Nos. 447 and 455), bring us back to the many-storeyed temples in Nepal, which are in all essential respects so nearly identical, that it can hardly be doubted they had a common origin. We are not yet in a position to point out the connecting links which will fuse the detached fragments of this style into a homogeneous whole, but it is probably in China that they must be looked for, only we know so little of the architectural history of the western portion of that great country, that we must wait for further information before even venturing on this subject. The fact that all the buildings of Burma are of wood, except the pagodas, may also explain how it is that India possesses no architectural remains anterior to the age of A^oka. Except the comparatively few masonry pagodas, none of which existed prior to his era, there is nothing in Burma that a conflagration of a few hours would not destroy, or the desertion of a few years entirely obliterate. That the same was the practice of India is almost certain, from the essentially wooden forms still found prevailing in all the earlier cave temples ; and, if so, this fully accounts for the disappearance of all earlier monuments. We know that wooden architecture was the characteristic of Media, where all the constructive parts were formed in this perishable material ; and from the Bible we learn that Solomon's edifices were chiefly so constructed. Persepolis presents us with the earliest instance remaining in Asia of this wooden architecture being petrified, as it were apparently in conse- quence of the intercourse its builders maintained with Egypt and with Greece. In Burma these wooden types still exist in more complete- ness than, perhaps, in any other country. Even if the student is not prepared to admit the direct ethnographic connection between the buildings of Burma and Babylon, he will at any rate best learn in this country to appreciate much in ancient architecture, which without such a living illustration, it is hard to understand. Solomon's House of the Forest of Lebanon 1 Yule's ' Mission to Ava,' pp. 354-355. Phayre in 'Jour. Asiat. Soc. Bengal,' vol. xxix. pp. 346ff. VOL. II. 2 A