Islamitic may doubtless be asserted that the influence of Islam—which had since the eleventh century spread widely in India— exhibited itself to some extent in these buildings, although Mohammedan structures earlier than the close of the sixteenth century are not known in that region. The cupolas which the Mohammedans built at a later period have another form; yet there are details which recall the Renais sance of the West in these late Hindu Jain temples, as in the Temple of Mount Abu, built of white marble and adorned with the most sumptuous figure-sculpture. Vet tradition places the erection of this structure in the year r032, and attributes it to the princely merchant Vimala Sall.
Burmese influence is undoubtedly evident in the buildings of Peru, a province of British Burmah, where the pointed arch is employed in combination with vaulted spaces. The pagoda is a gigantic tope which, instead of the simple dome-shape, rises as a decorated pyramid of polygonal form, bearing on its summit a tall iron spire richly gilt. Such is the Pagoda of Khomadu, on the Irrawaddy, which stands upon a base 30o metres (984 feet) in circuit and is surrounded by au entire forest of lower columns, about eight hundred in all; it stands about 5o metres (164 feet) high. Still more stupendous is the great Shoemadu Pagoda at Pegu, which rises from two mighty terraces to a height of ioo metres (32S feet) and has a diameter of r2o metres (395 feet). Its base is surrounded by a series of accessory pagodas S metres (26 feet) high.
Java, about the fourteenth century, we meet with mighty Buddhist temples of which also the tope forms the ground work. The grand Temple of Boro-Budor (Al. IS, fig. 4) is a pyramid of five terraces ascended by open staircases and set with four hundred and thirty-six niches with seated figures of Buddha. Upon these rise
three broader stages, the lowest of which has thirty-two, the next twen ty-four, and the highest sixteen small domed buildings enclosing sitting Buddhas, while a domical tope with a relic-chamber forms the summit of the whole.
Later Hindu architecture, though in our eyes extravagant and fantastic, persevered through many centuries in the use of the same tectonic principles, and built them into a complete system which pre scribed a fixed law for every untectonic form. Though in some districts we can perceive an intermixture of Mohammedan forms, in others the true Hindu elements held on unmixed even to a late age.
The Choultiy at .Madura (jfg. 2) is a specifically Indian work of considerable grandeur, begun in 1623 A. D. It has a hall divided into aisles by four ranges of pillars, one hundred and twentv-four in all, each hewn out of a single granite block. It is related concerning its erection that before the immense blocks which form the roof were raised into their place the entire interior was filled with earth. The beams of stone were then pulled up the inclined plane, and the earth was removed after they were secured in their places.
Hindu art survived unruined the domination of Islam and has come down undecayed to our period; yet the rule of the English appears destined to bring both the religion and the art of this ancient people to ruin, though perhaps traces of their art may survive into distant centuries. What still exists that does not belong to our civilization falls into the province of Ethnography, and there the Hindu buildings of the present age may also be properly treated. (See Vol. I. p. 378.)