Page:Picturesque Nepal.djvu/239

 fifteenth century, but the method of construction utilized in these edifices is, without doubt, based on forms of a very early period. The suggestion has been made that they reproduce many features directly traceable to the primitive wooden erections of India, which preceded the ancient structures of stone. Apart from the Japanese prototype already alluded to, there is an authentic document preserved containing a reference to a "tower" of nine stories which excited the admiration of a Chinese envoy to Nepal towards the middle of the sixth century. Sylvain Levi is inclined to believe that the pagoda design, ordinarily accepted as of Chinese invention, was a form common in India previous to the Mohammedan invasion, and concludes this theory with the pregnant sentence, "Le Nepal, ici encore, est l'image authentique d'une Inde disparue." On the other hand, Fergusson's researches indicate that the pagoda, whether of Burma, Nepal, or Siam, had undoubtedly a common origin, and that it is probably in China this must be looked for, but information on this aspect of Asiatic art is surprisingly meagre.