Page:Picturesque Nepal.djvu/240

 While on this subject, however, a reference must be made to a remarkable design over an archway in the Nan-kau Pass near Pekin, having the well-ascertained date of 1345 A.D., and it is interesting to observe identically the same motif employed over the door of the Durbar at Bhatgaon, constructed nearly four centuries later, the two buildings being in a direct line 2000 miles apart. By this and other signs it appears evident that some centuries ago there was a closer intercourse between the various countries of the Far East than is even observable at the present day, and the main impetus which produced this communication was a desire for interchange of religious ideas. Art naturally followed in the immediate wake of this movement—records of artists being sent for from one country to another are not rare in the "Middle Ages" of the East, and it is therefore not difficult to account for examples of decoration and architecture which are geographically far apart bearing distinct evidences of a common source of derivation. The pagoda is one of these interesting features,