The sculptures on every ancient temple in India throw some light on the subject of old costume. These are probably considerably within the Christian era, and they furnish specimens of the local costumes of 1000 years ago; but many temples in the south and west of India, as also in Gnjerat and Orissa, etc., are known to belong to periods as early as A.D. 500. But although groups of figures are numerous beyond descrip tion, their attire seems to be entirely conventional. 3fen for the most part wear head-dresses in the form of conical crowns richly covered with orna ments ; their bodies are naked, and their breasts and arms show necklaces and armlets of very ornate patterns. From the loins to the knee or middle of tho thigh, they have in most instances kilts, as it were, also composed of ornaments ; and many are altogether nude, both male and fernale, with a girdle of ornamental pattern round the loins. These figures abound among the sculptures of Ellora and to the 13th century ; also upon the Cholla ternples at Con jeveram and elsewhere, probably of the same era. In the Jain sculpture the male and female fig,ures are invariably naked, but ornamented in general with necklaces, bracelets, armlets, and zones of exceedingly intricate and beautiful patterns, in imitation, probably, of the chased gold work of the period.
Some of the men's figures on the temples of the south of India are clothed with defensive armour, and there is no trace of a sewn garment. The men's figures have short waist-cloths or dhotis; like kilts, with an end in some case.s cast over the shoulder ; the women are in the same costume ; lout both in the earlier memorial stones and on some of the profuse sculpture on the temple at Hullabid in 3fysore (Wiese Sa mudra, 10th to 12th century a.n.), they wear bodices, tied in front, as Hindu women wear them at present.
The best representations of ancient costurno in India are the celebrated fresco paintings in tho caves of Ajunta. In the Buddhist caves of Ellora some paintings in a similar style had been executed ; but they were destroyed by the 31u hammadans when they invaded the Dekban early in the 14tb century, and it is extraordinary that those of Ajunta escaped their iconoclastic) and fanatic zeal. They did escape, however, and for several years Major Gill, of the 3Iadras army, was engaged by Government in copying them on their original scale. It is difficult to decide the date of the Ajunta paintings, which represent scenes iu Buddhist history; and the series may extend front the first or second century before Christ to the fourth and sixth century of our era. In either case they are upwards of 1000 years old. One very large picture, covered with figures, represents the coronation of Sinhala, Buddhist king. He is seated on a stool or chair, crowned with a tiara of the usual conventional form ; corn, as an emblem of plenty and fertility, is being poured over his shoulder by girls. He is naked from the throat to the waist. All the wornen are naked to the waist ; some of them have the end of the cloth, or saree, thrown across the bosom, and passing over the left shoulder. Spearmen on foot and on horseback have short waist-eloths only. In another large picture, full of figures, r4resenting the introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon and its establishment there, all the figures, male and female, are naked to the waist. Some have waist-cloths or kilts only, others have scarfs, or probably the ends of the dhotis thrown over the shoulders. Female figures in different atti tudes around, are all naked, but have necklaces, ear-rings, and bracelets ; and one, a girdle of jewels round.
Later structures have been raised by Muham madans. In Northern India ',the best buildings date from the 12th to the 16th century (A.D. 1193– 1554). They were erected during the Pathan domination, and are contemporaneous with the best period of European art, that is of the Christian era. The epoch which witnessed the art-glories of Rouen and Chartres, of Paris under Philip Augustus, of Rheims, Loan, and Noyon, of Troyes and Dijon, participated in the triumphs—only tempered by a low degree of civilisation—of Pathan warriors, who, justly ambitious to per petuate the conquest of the Hindus, employed their subjects to erect for them a series of build ings in the capital of Dehli, which are among the most remarkable in India. No isolated monu ment, at least of the 13th century, exists anywhere to equal in beauty, strength, or dimensions the celebrated Kfitub Minar ; and the magnificent range of arches which form part of the ruins of the Great Mosque, as the Kiitub, are only less beautiful, from certain defects of construction, than the pointed openings of Christian cathedrals, which, however, they rival in colossal proportions. The 14th century—in France almost barren of art reminiscences, owing to foreign invasion and intestine wars—is remarkable as the epoch when English art first acquired its individuality. At the same period, a like individuality was growing out of the many buildings erected by the Hindus for their Muhammadan masters. In striking contrast with the delicate ornament of Netley, Tintern, and Melrose, with the fortifications of many an English city, and the • spires of many an English church, are the mausoleum of Taghalaq Shah, the city he erected and called after his name, the villages of Kirkhee and Begampur, the Jumaat Khana mosque, and the tombs around it, all of which display a, stern simplicity, more characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon than the native mind, as well as knowledge of construction and power of execution, combined with mathematical precision in the application of building materials to their log,ical uses. The arrangements intro duced to oupply the wants of the ruling race, and the skilful adaptation of an indigenous method of building to the manners and customs of the Muhammadan, are as astonishing as they are successful. In the 14th century neither European nor Asiatic sacrificed utility to beauty ; they sought to adorn the parts of their construction, never to construct their ornament. To them a dome was the outward and visible expression of its internal shape ; if a kiosk was introduced, it was to crown a staircase, add weight to an angle, or to serve some other useful purpose. Marble was legitimately employed to cover a dome or a kiosk, to form a border to an arch way inscribed with sentences from the Koran, or in perforated screens exquisitely carved. It is possible to read ' such buildings ; they are sermons in stones, they a,re works of art. The plains of Dehli disclose little to mark the 15th century. A mosque full of details of marvellous originality, and other buildings created by Hurna,yun, the gateways of Arab ki serai, and many a nameless sepulchre, fairly represent the 16th; though Humayun's tomb discloses a falling off in know ledge. of constructive principle. The works of Akbar in the 17th century, present a host of ideas tO inquiring men astonished to find so many proofs of bodily vigour and masculine intellect such as it seems difficult to ascribe to an Indian population.