Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/95

Rh written. A few, a very few, laws alone have as yet been determined, and even those have not yet been subjected to the crucial test of being used to predict results, which alone would entitle them to complete confidence. I shall therefore not attempt to discuss the architecture except incidentally, but will content myself with describing what I have seen. A discussion of the architecture must be postponed to a future period.

Reverting now to the Buddha Gaya temple, I have proved by the substantial agreement of certain main features, with those deduced from theory, the correctness of General Cunningham’s inference, that the temple, as we now see it, is substantially not different from the original temple, whether we assume it to have been built in Vikramâditya’s epoch, or in the 1st century after Christ; and that the opinion of Mr. Fergusson, notwithstanding the weight of his name in all questions as to style of architecture, is really erroneous, when he ascribes the “external form” to the 14th century, for if there is one thing untouched in the temple by later repairers, it is the broad features of the external form, all changes having been more internal than external. It now remains to determine the epochs of the various changes.

From the interesting story mentioned by Hwen Thsang, in connection with King Sasângka’s attempted destruction or removal of the statue of Buddha (Arch. Rep., III, p. 83), it is clear that the minister did not remove the statue, but merely built up a wall to screen it in front. Let us now trace the consequences of doing so, remembering that any evident departure from the easily recognised features of temple architecture would have been certainly detected, and would have brought destruction on that minister.

By building up the wall hiding Buddha’s statue, he reduced the square sanctum to an oblong. Such an easily perceptible departure from accepted practice could not pass muster; he would therefore be compelled to form it into a square by cutting off portions from the sides also. The walls which carry the inner vault are made just thick enough to do this, and no more, and this is the only reason I can see which can be assigned for making the walls, carrying the vault, of the thickness they actually are. This done, the sanctum becomes at once again a square, and as a crucial proof that the change which has been imagined was actually made at this time, is the circumstance that the lingam now in the temple, and which doubtless is the one set up by the