TORAN or Tonna. SANSK.
Pailoo, CHIN. I Tori, Torii, . . . JAP.
A capital, an arch, an ornamental arch, a festoon ; strings of flowers stretched across roads ; also the gateway of the Buddhist and Hindu ternples ; also the doorway of the relic or memorial toiffis or st'hupas, usually in the form of an ornamented archway, but some are formed of upright pillars held together by cross-beams of stone. The most beautiful of these are at Bijanagar, Futtehpur, Sikri, Gaur, Jaunpore, and Sanchi. The Torii of Japan, literally bird-nests, are the sacred gateways of the temples of the Shin-to sect, and consist of two upright posts and a transverse beaui. They are the portal over the entrance of the avenues leading to temples and shrines. The Toran in Raj t ana is a symbol of marriage, and consids of three wooden bars, forrning an equilateral triangle, having the apex crowned with the effigies of the peacock ; it is placed over the portal of the bride's abode. At Udaipur, when the princes of Jeysul mir, Bikauir, and Kishengarh simultaneously married the two daughters and the aranddaughter of the rana, the torans were suspended fiorn the battlements of the tripolia, or ithree-arched portal leading to the palace. The bridegroom on horse back, lance in hand, proceeds/ to break the toran, toran-torna, which is defended by the damsels of the bride, who from the parapet as:ail him with missiles of various kinds, espeially with a crimson powder made from the flowers of the palasa, at the same time singing songs fipted to the occasion, replete with double entendres. At length the toran is broken amidst the sWouts of the retainers, when the fair defenders retirie. The similitude of
these ceremonies to others in_ the north of Europe and Asia, increases the list of com-affinitics, and indicates the violence of rude times to obtain the object of affection ; rind the lance, with which the Rajptit chieftain breaks the toran, luta the same emblematic import as the spear which, at the marriage of the nobles in Sweden, was a neces sary implement in the furniture of tho inarriago chamber. We discover in this emblem the origin of the triumphal arches of antiquity, with many other rites which maybe traced to the Indo-Scythic races of Asia. The Rajput's toran, in its original form, consisted of two columns and an architrave, constituting the number three, sacred to Hari, the god of war. In the progress of the arts, the archi tnive gave way to the Hindu arch, which consisted of two or more ribs without the keystone, the apex being the perpendicular junction of the archivaults ; nor is the arc of the toran semicircular, or any seg ment of a circle, but with that graceful curvature which statnps with originality one of the arches of the Normans, avho may have brought it from their ancient seats on the Oxus, whence it may also have been carried within the Indus. The cromlech, or trilithic altar, in the centre of all those monu ments, called Druidic, is most probably a toran sacred to the sun-god Belenus, like liar or 13a1 S.va, the god of battle, to whom, as soon as a temple is ntised, the toran is erected, and many of these are exquisitely bertutif al.—Northern Antiqui ties; Torts Rajasthan, i. p. 271.