Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/485

 CHAP. III. SIAM. 407 entrance. In Burma it seems sometimes to have been built in a separate enclosure of its own. The Bot was rectangular on plan, and was divided into central and side aisles by columns in stone, carrying open timber roofs covered with glazed tiles in bright colours. The illustration of the Bot of the Vat Jai at Sukhodaya (Woodcut No. 473) shows that in section it resembled that of an early Christian church with nave and side aisles. The roofs over the side aisles were at a lower level than that of the central aisle, leaving space for a clerestory, which consisted of pierced terra-cotta slabs. Similar perforated screens were built in between the outer columns of the aisles. In important temples the Bot had double aisles on each side. The system of tenoning beams into the columns is similar to that which is found in Chinese temples and halls, but here in Siam the columns are sometimes crowned with capitals carved with lotus leaves, the main beams and plates resting on the top of the capitals, the transverse beams across the aisles, and the beams carrying the clerestory being tenoned into the columns. The principal feature in the Bot, admission to which was confined to the priests, was the great altar carrying a gilded statue of Buddha, which was always placed in the central aisle, in the last bay but one. The Bot, which was always preceded by a porch, as a rule stood opposite the east entrance of the enclosure. In its rear was the principal Phra, or stupa, of the temple, of which there were two types of design (Plate XLVI.), the Phra- Prang and the Phra-Chedi. The former is of a type peculiar to Siam ; about half-way up is the cell, with its entrance door on the eastern side, access to which was obtained by a steep flight of steps, and recessed niches on the three other sides ; the form which it takes differs in many essential respects from those we find either in India or Burma. The top, or upper part (Woodcut No. 472), has a domical shape, which we can easily fancy to be derived from the stupa, but the upright part looks more like the Sikhara of a Hindu temple than anything Buddhist. The Phra-Chedi is based apparently on the stupas of India, the cell containing the relics of Buddha, however, being placed underground, and reached in the larger examples by secret passages in the thickness of the walls. There is also some- times one characteristic Siamese feature not found in India or Cambodia, in the lower storey of the annulet spire, round which a series of detached columns or piers are built, giving the aspect of a classic peristyle ; this exists in one of the Phra- Chedis of Vat Jai, at Sukhodaya, and in the great example at Phra Pathom. The enormous structure now existing of the