The little building on the right is the car of the god, formed of a single block of granite, with movable wheels, but they are the only parts that move. There are, besides, either one or two pavilions, smaller, but similar in design to that represented in the woodcut, a gopura, and other adjuncts, which would be interesting, if we had the means of comparing and describing them.

Although the temple of Vitoba is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins in India, and there are other temples of great beauty and extent in the capital, it is not quite clear that it is there the chefs-d’œuvre of this dynasty are to be found, but rather at a place called Tarputry, about one hundred miles a little east of south from the capital. There are two temples there: the one now in use, dedicated to Vishnu, is the elder, and in so far as whitewash and paint will allow one to judge, ranges with the works of the earliest kings of the Vijayanagar dynasty; but the wonders of the place are two gopuras belonging to a now deserted temple on the banks of the river, about a quarter of a mile from the others. One of these was apparently quite finished, the other never carried higher than the perpendicular part. In almost all the gopuras of India this part is comparatively plain, all the figure-sculpture and ornament being reserved for the upper or pyramidal part. In this instance, however, the whole of the perpendicular part is covered with the most elaborate sculpture, cut with exquisite sharpness and precision, in a fine close-grained hornblende (?) stone, and produces an effect richer, and on the whole perhaps in

better taste, than anything else in this style (Woodcuts Nos. 211, 212). It is difficult of course to institute a comparison between these gopuras and such works as Tirumulla Nayak’s choultrie, or the corridors at Ramisseram; they are so different that there is no common basis of comparison but the vulgar one of cost; but if compared with Hullabîd or Baillûr, these Tarputry gopuras stand that test better than any other works of the Vijayanagar Rajas. They are inferior, but not so much so as one would expect from the two centuries of decadence that elapsed between them, and they certainly show a marked superiority over the great unfinished gopura of Tirumulla Nayak, which was commenced, as nearly as may be, one century afterwards.

About fifty miles still further east, at a place called Diggu Hublum, there is a large unfinished mantapa, in plan and design very like that of the temple of Vitoba at Vijayanagar, but its style and details are so much more like those of the Nayaks, that it must be at least a century more modern, and could not therefore have been erected before the destruction of that capital in A.D. 1565. The dynasty, however, continued to exist for one or two centuries after that time, till the country was finally conquered by Tipu Sultan. It must have been by one of the expatriated rajas that this temple was erected, but by whom even tradition is silent. Whoever may have built it, it is a fine bold specimen of architecture, and if the history of the art in the south of India is ever seriously taken up, it will worthily take a place in the series as one of the best specimens of its age, wanting the delicacy and elegance of the earlier examples, but full of character and merit.[397]

Conclusion.

The buildings mentioned, and more or less perfectly described, in the preceding pages are in number rather more than one-third of the great Dravidian temples known to exist in the province. In importance and extent they certainly are, however, more than one-half. Of the remainder, none have vimanas, like that of Tanjore, nor corridors, like those of Ramisseram; but several have gopuras quite equal to or exceeding those mentioned above, and many have mantapas of great beauty and extent. Several—such as Avadea Covill, Veeringepuram, Taramungulam, and others—possess features unsurpassed by any in the south, especially the first-named, which may, perhaps, be considered as one of the most elegant of its class, as well as one of the oldest. It would, however, be only tedious to attempt to describe them without plans to refer to, or more extensive illustrations than are compatible with a work of this class. They are, however, worthy of more attention than has been paid to them, and of more complete illustration than has hitherto been bestowed upon them. Taken altogether, they certainly do form as extensive, and in some respects as remarkable, a group of buildings as are to be found in provinces of similar extent in any part of the world—Egypt, perhaps, alone excepted; but they equal even the Egyptian in extent, and though at first sight so different, in some respects present similarities which are startling. Without attempting to enumerate the whole, it may be mentioned that the gopuras, both in form and purpose, resemble the pylons of the Egyptian temples. The courts with pillars and cloisters are common to both, and very similar in arrangement and extent. The great mantapas and halls of 1000 columns reproduce the hypostyle halls, both in purpose and effect, with almost minute accuracy. The absence of any central tower or vimana over the sanctuary is universal in Egypt, and only conspicuously violated in one instance in India. Their mode of aggregation, and the amount of labour bestowed upon them for labour’s sake, is only too characteristic of both styles. There are, besides, many similarities that will occur to any one familiar with both styles.

Is all this accidental? It seems strange that so many coincidences should be fortuitous, but, so far as history affords us any information, or as any direct communication can be traced, we must for the present answer that it is so. The interval of time is so great, and the mode in which we fancy we can trace the native growth of most of the features in India seem to negative the idea of an importation; but there certainly was intercourse between Egypt and India in remote ages, and seed may then have been sown which fructified long afterwards.

If we were to trust, however, to either tradition or to mythological or ethnological coincidences, it is rather to Babylonia than to Egypt that we should look for the incunabula of what are found in southern India. But here the architectural argument is far from having the same distinctness; and, in fact, whichever way we turn, we are forced to confess that these problems are not yet ripe for solution, though enough is known to encourage the hope that the time is not distant when materials will be gathered that will make all clear.

CHAPTER IV.

CIVIL ARCHITECTURE.

Although, like all nations of Turanian race, the Dravidians were extensive and enthusiastic builders, it is somewhat singular that till they came in contact with the Mahomedans all their efforts in this direction should have been devoted to the service of religion. No trace of any civil or municipal building is to be found anywhere, though from the stage of civilization that they had attained it might be expected that such must have existed. What is, however, even more remarkable is, that kingdoms always at war with one another, and contending for supremacy within a limited area, might have been expected to develop some sort of military architecture. So far, however, as is now known, no castle or fortification of any sort dates from the Pandya, Chera, or Chola days. What is still more singular in a people of Turanian blood is, that they have no tombs. They seem always to have burnt their dead, and never to have collected their ashes or raised any mounds or memorials to their departed friends or great men. There are, it is true, numberless “Rude stone monuments” all over the south of India, but, till they are more thoroughly investigated, it is impossible to say whether they belong to the Dravidians when in a lower stage of civilization than when they became temple builders, or whether they belong to other underlying races who still exist, in scattered fragments, all over the south of India, in a state bordering on that of savages.[398] Whoever these Dolmens or stone circles may have belonged to, we know, at least, that they never were developed into architectural objects, such as would bring them within the scope of this work. No Dravidian tomb or cenotaph is known to exist anywhere.

When, however, the Dravidians came in contact with the Mussulmans this state of affairs was entirely altered, in so far, at least, as civil buildings were concerned. The palaces, the kutcherries, the elephant-stables, and the dependencies of the abodes of the rajas at Vijayanagar and Mádura, rival in extent and in splendour the temples themselves, and are not surpassed in magnificence by the Mahomedan palaces of Bijapur or Bidar.

One of the most interesting peculiarities of these civil buildings is, that they are all in a new and different style of architecture from that employed in the temples, and the distinction between the civil and religious art is kept up to the present day. The civil buildings are all in what we would call a pointed-arched Moorish style—picturesque in effect, if not always in the best taste, and using the arch everywhere and for every purpose. In the temples the arch is never used as an architectural feature. In some places, in modern times, when they wanted a larger internal space than could be obtained by bracketing without great expense, a brick vault was introduced,—it may be said surreptitiously—for it is always concealed. Even now, in building gopuras, they employ wooden beams, supported by pillars, as lintels, to cover the central openings in the upper pyramidal part, and this having decayed, many of the most modern exhibit symptoms of decay which are not observable in the older examples, where a stone lintel always was employed. But it is not only in construction that the Dravidians adhere to their old forms in temples. There are, especially, some gopuras erected within the limits of this century, and erecting even now, which it requires a practised eye to distinguish from older examples; but with the civil buildings the case is quite different. It is not, indeed, clear how a convenient palace could be erected in the trabeate style of the temples, unless, indeed, wood was very extensively employed, both in the supports and the roofs. My conviction is, that this really was the case, and its being so, to a great extent, at least, accounts for their disappearance.

The principal apartments in the palace at Mádura are situated round a courtyard which measures 244 ft. east and west by 142 ft. north and south, surrounded on all sides by arcades of very great beauty. The pillars which support the arches are of stone, 40 ft. in height, and are joined by foliated brick arcades of great elegance of design. The whole of the ornamentation is worked out in the exquisitely fine stucco called “chunan,” or shell lime, which is a characteristic of the Madras Presidency.[399] On one side of the court stands the Swerga Vilasam, or Celestial Pavilion, formerly the throne-room of the palace, now used by the High Court of

Justice. It is an arcaded octagon, covered by a dome 60 ft. in diameter and 60 ft. in height. On another side of this court is placed the splendid hall shown in the annexed woodcut (No. 213), the two corresponding with the Dewanni Khas and Dewanni Aum of Mahomedan palaces. This one, in its glory, must have been as fine as any, barring the material. The hall itself is said to be 120 ft. long by 67 ft. wide,[400] and its height to the centre of the roof is 70 ft.; but, what is more important than its dimensions, it possesses all the structural propriety and character of a Gothic building. It is evident that if the Hindus had persevered a little longer in this direction they might have accomplished something that would have surpassed the works of their masters in this form of art. In the meanwhile it is curious to observe that the same king who built the choultries (Woodcuts Nos. 202, 203 and 204) built also this hall. The style of the one is as different from that of the other as Classic Italian from Mediæval Gothic: the one as much over ornamented as the other is too plain for the purposes of a palace, but both among the best things of their class which have been built in the country where they are found.

The modern dynasty of Tanjore was founded by Eccoji, a brother of Sivagi, the great Máhratta chief, during the decline of the Mádura dynasty in 1675. The palace was probably commenced shortly afterwards, but the greater part of its buildings belong to the 18th century, and some extend even into the 19th.

It is not unlike the Mádura palace in arrangement—is, indeed, evidently copied from it—nor very different in style; but the ornamentation is coarser and in more vulgar taste, as might be expected from our knowledge of the people who erected it (Woodcut No. 214). In some of the apartments this is carried so far as to become almost offensive. One of the most striking peculiarities of the palace is the roof of the great hall externally. As you approach Tanjore, you see two great vimanas, not unlike each other in dimensions or outline, and at a distance can hardly distinguish which belongs to the great temple. On closer inspection, however, that of the palace turns out to be made up of dumpy pilasters and fat balusters, and ill-designed mouldings of Italian architecture, mixed up with a few details of Indian art! A more curious and tasteless jumble can hardly be found in Calcutta or Lucknow.

The palace buildings at Vijayanagar are much more detached and scattered than those either at Tanjore or Mádura, but they are older, and probably reproduce more nearly the arrangements of a Hindu prince’s residence, before they fell completely under the sway of Moslem influence. Practically the palace consists of a number of detached pavilions, baths, hareems, and other buildings, that may have been joined by wooden arcades. They certainly were situated in gardens, and may consequently have had a unity we miss in their present state of desolation. One of these pavilions is represented in the preceding woodcut (No. 215). It is a fair specimen of that picturesque mixed style which arose from the mixture of the Saracenic and Hindu styles.

Even this mixed style, however, died out wherever the Europeans settled, or their influence extended. The modern palaces of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, of the Rajas of Ramnad or Travancore, are all in the bastard Italian style, adopted by the Nawabs of Lucknow and the Babus of Calcutta. Sometimes, it must be confessed, the buildings are imposing from their mass, and picturesque from their variety of outline, but the details are always detestable, first from being bad copies of a style that was not understood or appreciated, but also generally from their being unsuited for the use to which they were applied. To these defects it must be added, that the whole style is generally characterised by a vulgarity it is difficult to understand in a people who have generally shown themselves capable of so much refinement in former times.

In some parts of the north of India matters have not sunk so low as in the Madras Presidency, but in the south civil architecture as a fine art is quite extinct, and though sacred architecture still survives in a certain queer, quaint form of temple-building, it is of so low a type that it would hardly be a matter of regret if it, too, ceased to exist, and the curtain dropped over the graves of both, as they are arts that practically have become extinct.

BOOK V.

CHALUKYAN STYLE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Of the three styles into which Hindu architecture naturally divides itself, the Chalukyan is neither the least extensive nor the least beautiful, but it certainly is the least known. The very name of the people was hardly recognised by early writers on Indian subjects, and the first clear ideas regarding them were put forward, in 1826, in a paper by Sir Walter Elliot, in the fourth volume of the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.’ To this he added another paper, in the twentieth volume of the ‘Madras Journal:’ and since then numerous inscriptions of this dynasty and of its allied families have been found, and translated by General Le Grand, Jacob and others, in the ‘Bombay Journal,’ and by Professor Dowson in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’ here.[401]

From all this we gather that early in the sixth century of our era[402] this family rose into importance at Kalyan—in what is now the Nizam’s territory—and spread eastward as far as the shores of the Bay of Bengal, in the neighbourhood of the mouths of the Kistnah and Godavery. They extended, in fact, from shore to shore, right across the peninsula, and occupied a considerable portion of the country now known as Mysore, and northward extended as far, at least, as Dowlutabad.

Beyond this, they seem to have been closely allied with the Ballabhi dynasty of Gujerat, and afterwards to be the parent stems from which the Hoisala Bellalas of Dwarasamudra took their rise.

Their affiliations and descents are more easily traced than their origin. Jaya Singa, the founder of the Kalyan dynasty (A.D. 500?), claims to be of the Solar race of Rajputs, and descended from kings reigning in Ayodhya 1000 years (fifty-nine generations) before his time. This, however, seems as likely to be a reminiscence of the origin of their religion as of their race; for, though we are not yet in a position to prove it, it seems likely that the Chalukyas were originally Jains. At all events, it seems clear that the extension of the Jaina religion is nearly conterminous with that of Chalukyan sway, and the time at which the religion spread over India was also coincident with their rise and fall.

It would, of course, be too much to assert that the Chalukyas were either the revivors of the Jaina faith or even its principal propagators; but, during the early part of their history, this form of faith is inextricably mixed up with the more orthodox religions as practised by them, and prevails to the present day, in the countries where they ruled. The style of architecture which they invented when Jains was, it is true, practised afterwards by them both as Vaishnavas and Saivas; but it seems to have had its origin in the earlier form of faith.

Like all dynasties of Central and Northern India, the Chalukyas suffered eclipse in the dark ages that intervened between A.D. 750 and 950;[403] and the difficulty is to know whether we have any temples in their style before that period. Those at Aiwulli and Purudkul described above (Woodcuts Nos. 121 and 189), belong to their age, and may have been erected by early kings of this race; but they do not belong to their style. Their sikras, or towers, either show the curvilinear outline of the northern style, or the storeyed pyramids of the Dravidians. It is as if this intrusive race adopted hesitatingly the styles of earlier inhabitants of the country, but that it was not till they had consolidated their power, and developed peculiar institutions of their own, that they expressed them in the style to which their name has been affixed.

It is more than probable that the materials exist for settling these and all other questions connected with this style; but, unfortunately, if it is so, they exist in the Nizam’s territory, and that is terra incognita to us in so far as architecture is concerned. No one has yet passed through it who had any knowledge of the art, or was even aware that any interest attached to the forms or age of the buildings. It thus happens that, but for a few stray photographs, it must have been passed over as a style less known, from an artistic point of view, than that of almost any civilized country in the world. The rulers of the Hydrabad territory being bigoted Mahomedans, it is to be feared that great destruction of native temples may have taken place; but the real cause of our ignorance on the subject is the indifference and apathy to such matters in those who rule the rulers, and who, if they chose, could clear up the whole mystery in a few months or years, and with little expense to themselves, beyond expressing a wish that it should be done.

It may be, however, that the remains have perished. The line of Mahomedan capitals—Bijapur, Kalburgah, Bidar, and Hydrabad—which have long occupied the native country of the Chalukyas, is painfully suggestive of the destruction of Hindu temples; but still the wealth of remains that exists in Dharwar on the south and west, and the Berars on the north of the Nizam’s territories, is so great that all certainly cannot have perished, and many will probably be found to solve the historical enigmas, though they may not be sufficient to restore the style in its integrity.

Whether Kalyani itself has escaped is by no means clear. In a list of remains in the Bombay Presidency, prepared by Mr. Burgess, dated 1873, there are the following entries:—“Three miles to the south-east of town, some fine temples and other ruins;” and further on, on the authority of the late Bhau Daji, it is stated, “has extensive ruins for miles around. There are caves in the hills, called Hazar Khotri, or Thousand Chambers. Pir Padshah Musjid is probably part of a Hindu temple.” If this is so, the history of the style is probably all there, and only awaits the advent of some one capable of reading it.

The simplest and most typical example of the style that I know, and the one, consequently, which will serve best to explain its peculiarities, is at a place called Buchropully, not far from Hydrabad. It probably is also one of the oldest, and may even date before the cataclysm; but this is only a guess. I have no such real knowledge of the early form of the style as would enable me to feel sure on such a subject. As will be observed, the temple itself is polygonal, or star-shaped, of twenty-four sides (Woodcut No. 216). These, however, are not obtained, as in the northern style, by increments added flatly to a square, as will be explained hereafter, but are points touching a circle, in this instance apparently right angles, but afterwards were either more acute or flatter than a right angle. There are four principal faces, however, larger than the others: three occupied by niches, the fourth by the entrance. The roof is in steps, and with a flat band on each face in continuation of the larger face below. The summit ornament is a flower or vase, in this instance apparently incomplete. The porch is simple, consisting only of sixteen pillars, disposed equidistantly, without any attempt at the octagonal dome of the Jains or the varied arrangements subsequently attempted.

Although of no great magnificence in itself, this temple is interesting as possessing all the features which distinguish the Chalukyan style from those that surround it either on the north or south. Instead of their square plans, this one is practically star-shaped. The sikra is a straight-lined cone, and its decorations in steps is as unlike the Dravidian spire in storeys as it is to the curvilinear outline of the Jaina or northern temples. The porch, too, is open, and consists of columns spaced equidistantly over its floor, without either the bracketing arrangements of the southern or the domical forms of the northern styles. Situated as it was locally, half-way between the Dravidian and northern styles, the Chalukyan borrowed occasionally a feature or form from one or from the other, but never to such an extent as to obliterate its individuality, or to prevent its being recognised as a separate and distinct style of architecture.

When the Nizam’s territory is examined, we shall probably be able to trace all the steps by which this simple village example developed into the metropolitan temple of Hammoncondah, the old capital, six miles north of Worangul. According to an inscription on its walls, this temple was erected, in A.D. 1163, by Pratapa Rudra,[404]

who, though not exactly himself a Chalukya in blood, succeeded to their possessions and their style. The temple itself is triple, having three detached cells of very considerable dimensions, in front of which is a portico, supported by between 240 or 300 pillars, disposed in a varied and complicated pattern,[405] but without any sign, so far as I can trace, of the Jaina octagonal arrangement for a dome. Like most of these late temples, this one was never finished. It was too extensive for one king’s reign, even for one so powerful as he was who undertook it, and before it was heartily taken up again the Mahomedans were upon them (in A.D. 1309), and there was an end of Hindu greatness and of Hindu art.

Some of its details, however, are of great beauty, especially the entrances, which are objects on which the architects generally lavished their utmost skill. The preceding woodcut (No. 217) will explain the form of those of the great temple, as well as the general ordinances of the pillars of the great portico. Nothing in Hindu art is more pleasing than the pierced slabs which the Chalukyas used for windows. They are not, so far as I recollect, used—certainly, not extensively—in any other style, but as used by them are highly ornamental and appropriate, both externally and internally.

The pillars, too, are rich, without being overdone; and as it is only in pairs that they are of the same design, the effect of the whole is singularly varied, but at the same time pleasing and elegant.

There are at Hammoncondah or Worangul a great number of smaller temples and shrines, in the same style as the great temple, and, like it, apparently all dedicated to Siva, from the constant presence of his bull everywhere. Most are ruined; but whether this is owing to Moslem bigotry or faulty construction, it is difficult to say. Judging from appearances, I am inclined to believe the latter was the true cause. The mode of building is without mortar, and the joints are by no means well fitted. The style is also remarkably free from figure-sculpture, which is generally the thing that most easily excites the iconoclastic feelings of the followers of the Prophet.

In Worangul there are four Kirti Stambhas, as they are called, facing one another, as if they formed the entrances to a square enclosure (Woodcut No. 218). No wall is there, however, nor is there anything inside; so the object of their erection is by no means apparent. They were set up by the same Pratapa Rudra who built the great temple in the old capital, and built several others in this new city. It cannot be said they are particularly elegant specimens of art. Their main interest lies in their being the lineal descendants of the four gateways at Sanchi (Woodcut No. 33), and they may have been erected to replace some wooden or frailer structure which had fallen into decay. Whether this is so or not, they are curious as exemplifying how, in the course of a thousand years or thereabouts, a wooden style of building may lose all traces of its origin and become as essentially lithic as these, but still betray its origin as clearly as they do; for it seems most unlikely that any such form could have been invented by any one using stone constructions, and that only.

Mysore.

It is in the province of Mysore, however, that the Chalukyan style attained its fullest development and highest degree of perfection during the three centuries—A.D. 1000 to 1300—in which the Hoisala Bellalas had supreme sway in that country. Three temples, or rather groups of temples, were erected by them—the first at a place called Somnathpûr, south of Mysore, by Vinaditya Bellala, who ascended the throne A.D. 1043; the second at Baillûr, in the centre of the province, owed its origin apparently to Vishnu Verddhana, in or about A.D. 1114; the last and greatest at a place they called Dwarsamudra—the Gate of the Sea—now known as Hullabîd, not far from the last-named, from which the capital was removed by Vijaya Narsinha, in 1145. It continued to be the metropolis of the kingdom, till it was destroyed and the building of the great temple stopped by the Mahomedan invasion in A.D. 1310-1311.[406]

Even in this short series we see evidence of that downward progress of art, especially in sculpture, which is everywhere the characteristic of Hindu art. Though the design is the grandest, the sculpture and details of Hullabîd are inferior to those of Baillûr, and Somnathpûr seems superior to both. We consequently long to trace back the history of the style to some more distant date, when we might find it emerging in purity and elegance from some unknown prototype. Unfortunately, we are not at present able to do this. We are obliged to leap over the dark ages to the caves and temples of Badami and Aiwulli, and have no intermediate examples to connect the two. It is more than probable that they do exist, and will be found when looked for. Meanwhile, however, we can only assume that the star-like plans and peculiar details of the style were elaborated between the 6th and the 10th centuries in Central and Western India, but where and by whom remains still to be discovered.

Like the great temple at Hammoncondah, that at Somnathpûr is triple, the cells, with their sikras, being attached to a square pillared hall, to the fourth side of which a portico is attached, in this instance of very moderate dimensions.[407] The whole stands in a square cloistered court, and has the usual accompaniments of entrance-porches, stambhas, &c.

The following illustration (No. 219) will give an idea—an imperfect one, it must be confessed—of the elegance of outline and marvellous elaboration of detail that characterises these shrines. Judging from the figure of a man in one of the photographs, its height seems to be only about 30 ft., which, if it stood in the open, would be almost too small for architectural effect; but in the centre of an enclosed court, and where there are no larger objects to contrast with it, it is sufficient, when judiciously treated, to produce a considerable impression of grandeur, and apparently does so in this instance.

The temple at Somnathpûr is a single but complete whole; that at Baillûr, on the other hand, consists of one principal temple, surrounded by four or five others and numerous subordinate buildings, enclosed in a court by a high wall measuring 360 ft. by 440 ft., and having two very fine gateways or gopuras in its eastern front. As will be seen from the following plan (Woodcut No. 220), the great temple consists of a very solid vimana, with an anterala, or porch; and in front of this a porch of the usual star-like form, measuring 90 ft. across. The whole length of the temple, from the east door to the back of cell, is 115 ft., and the whole stands on a terrace about 3 ft. high, and from 10 ft. to 15 ft. wide. This is one of the characteristic features of Chalukyan design, and adds very considerably to the effect of their temples.

The arrangements of the pillars have much of that pleasing subordination and variety of spacing which is found in those of the Jains, but we miss here the octagonal dome, which gives such poetry and meaning to the arrangements they adopted. Instead of that, we have only an exaggerated compartment in the centre, which fits nothing, and, though it does give dignity to the centre, it does it so clumsily as to be almost offensive in an architectural sense.

It is not, however, either to its dimensions, or the disposition of its plan, that this temple owes its pre-eminence among others of its class, but to the marvellous elaboration and beauty of its details. The effect of these, it is true, has been, in modern times, considerably marred by the repeated coats of whitewash which the present low order of priests consider the most appropriate way of adding to the beauty of the most delicate sculptures. Notwithstanding this, however, their outline can always be traced, and where the whitewash has not been applied, or has been worn off, their beauty comes out with wonderful sharpness.

The following woodcut (No. 221) will convey some idea of the richness and variety of pattern displayed in the windows of the porch. These are twenty-eight in number, and all are different. Some are pierced with merely conventional patterns, generally star-shaped, and with foliaged bands between; others are interspersed with figures and mythological subjects—the nearest one, for instance, on the left, in the woodcut, represents the Varaha Avatar, and others different scenes connected with the worship of Vishnu, to whom the temple is dedicated. The pierced slabs themselves, however, are hardly so remarkable as the richly-carved base on which they rest, and the deep cornice which overshadows and protects them. The amount of labour, indeed, which each facet of this porch displays is such as, I believe, never was bestowed on any surface of equal extent in any building in the world; and though the design is not of the highest order of art, it is elegant and appropriate, and never offends against good taste.

The sculptures of the base of the vimana, which have not been whitewashed, are as elaborate as those of the porch, in some places more so; and the mode in which the undersides of the cornices have been elaborated and adorned is such as is only to be found in temples of this class. The upper part of the tower is anomalous. It may be that it has been whitewashed and repaired till it has assumed its present discordant appearance, which renders it certainly a blot on the whole design. My own impression rather is, that, like many others of its class, it was left unfinished, and the upper part added at subsequent periods. Its original form most probably was that of the little pavilions that adorn its portals, one of which is represented in the following woodcut (No. 222), which has all the peculiar features of the style—the flat band on each face, the three star-like projections between, and the peculiar crowning ornament of the style. The plan of the great tower, and the presence of the pavilions where they stand, seems to prove almost beyond doubt that this was the original design; but the design may have been altered as it progressed, or it may, as I suspect, have been changed afterwards.

There seems to be little or no doubt about the date of this temple. It was erected by Vishnu Verddhana, the fourth king of the race, to commemorate his conversion by the celebrated Rama Anuja from the Jaina to the Hindu faith. He ascended the throne A.D. 1114, and his conversion took place soon afterwards; but it is possible he did not live to finish the temple, and as the capital was removed by the next king to Hullabîd, it is possible that the vimana of the great temple, and the erection of some at least of the smaller shrines, may belong to a subsequent period.

Hullabîd.

The earliest temple known to exist at Hullabîd is a small detached shrine, known by the inexplicable name of Kait Iswara, dedicated to Siva, and probably erected by Vijaya, the fifth king of the Bellala dynasty. Its general appearance will be understood from the next woodcut (No. 223). It is star-shaped in plan, with sixteen points, and had a porch, now so entirely ruined and covered up with vegetation that it is difficult to make out its plan. Its roof is conical, and from the basement to the summit it is covered with sculptures of the very best class of Indian art, and these so arranged as not materially to interfere with the outlines of the building, while they impart to it an amount of richness only to be found among specimens of Hindu art.[408] If it were possible to illustrate this little temple in anything like completeness, there is probably nothing in India which would convey a better idea of what its architects were capable of accomplishing.

It is, however, surpassed in size and magnificence by its neighbour, the great temple at Hullabîd, which, had it been completed, is one of the buildings on which the advocate of Hindu architecture would desire to take his stand. Unfortunately, it never was finished, the works having been stopped by the Mahomedan conquest in 1310 A.D., after they had been in progress apparently for eighty-six years. It is instructive to observe that the single century that elapsed between the execution of the sculpture of the Kait Iswara and of this temple, was sufficient to demonstrate the decay in style which we have already noticed as an inherent characteristic of Indian art. The sculptures of Hullabîd are inferior to those of the Kait Iswara, and those of that temple, again, to those at Baillûr.

The general arrangements of the building are given on the annexed plan (Woodcut No. 224), from which it will be perceived that it is a double temple. If it were cut into halves, each part would be complete with a pillared porch of the same type as that at Baillûr, above referred to, an anterala or intermediate porch, and a sanctuary containing a lingam, the emblem of Siva. Besides this, each half would have in front of it a detached, pillared porch as a shrine for the Bull Nundi, which, of course, was not required in a Vaishnava temple. Such double temples are by no means uncommon in India, but the two sanctuaries usually face each other, and have the porch between them. Its dimensions may roughly be stated as 200 ft. square over all, including all the detached pavilions. The temple itself is 160 ft. north and south, by 122 ft. east and west. Its height, as it now remains, to the cornice is about 25 ft. from the terrace on which it stands. It cannot, therefore, be considered by any means as a large building, though large enough for effect. This, however, can hardly be judged of as it now stands, for there is no doubt but that it was intended to raise two pyramidal spires over the sanctuaries, four smaller ones in front of these, and two more, one over each of the two central pavilions. Thus completed, the temple would have assumed something like the outline shown in the woodcut (No. 225), and if carried out with the richness of detail exhibited in the Kait Iswara (Woodcut No. 223) would have made up a whole which it would be difficult to rival anywhere.