Page:The Rock-cut Temples of India.djvu/223



NTERNALLY the verandah does not present so pleasing an aspect at the present day as the exterior, in consequence of its having depended for effect principally on paintings, and these have perished. Owing to the shadows, the internal photograph shows better than those of the exterior the system on which these pillars are designed. First, a square cubical base, the same height for all. On this an octagonal frustrum of a shaft also uniform in height. The transition being broken by a seated figure at each angle. In the centre pillars this changes into a sixteen-sided figure at top and bottom. In the next two only at the top, on the outside ones not at all; but all have belts of thirty-two sides in the centres,—the same system being observable not only throughout their architecture, but in every phase of Hindoo thought or design. 49