There seems now to be a gap of about four centuries in the art of the South, until we reach the earliest pagodas. Pagoda architecture is characteristic of this region. Its most striking example is at Chidambaram. The plan is a large rectangle about 500 X 400 meters, having a gopuram at each cardinal point. These gopu rams are rectangular truncated pyramids in sev eral stories; the largest is about 50 meters high and has seven stories. There is a large sacred pond 100 X 60 meters, and the main temple has a thousand columns and measures 103 X 60 X 13 meters. In contrast with the buildings of the North is not only the enormous scale of such monuments, and their elaborate accessories, but also a radical difference in the proportions. The piers are far more slender and higher, with sim pler outlines, and the interior effects are better. Even earlier is the pagoda at Tanjore (eleventh century), with a great gopuram tower in fifteen stories directly ever the sanctuary; the manta pant or temple of the sacred bull, an open colon naded shrine in three aisles, is a beautiful ex ample of delicate lofty proportions and wide in teriors. Another group of extremely sacred pagodas—inaccessible to Europeans—is at Tri petty; still another at Conjeveram.
But the greatest group in the entire South is at Vijanagara (q.v.), which has remained a deserted city since 1565. Its monuments are com paratively late, dating mostly from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they belong to the culminating period of art in this region. The great pagoda of Liva and the temple of Vitoba illustrate the grandiose and monumental char acter of the buildings, although their is less pure than that of previous centuries. Still later
is the great pagoda at Madura. an immense and imposing composition (seventeenth cent or I. One of the best portions is the present Bazar or Puthit Mantapam,' 100 X 30 meters. with a roof supported by an imposing avenue of 12S piers, mostly in the form of realistic monsters and divinities, in a style much used in the South, hut never with such richness and life-like detail as here.
In the matter of size and imposing composition nothing equals the great pagoda of Srirangam, one of the most gigantic edifices in the world. In the construction of the great pagodas it was the custom to make any additions by throwing out another concentric quadrangle, with its series of gopuram pyramids, the original sanctuary re maining in the centre; and, peculiarly enough, every time another quadrangle was erected its gopurams were higher than the preceding, so that the central gopurams ended by seeming in significant. At Siirangam successive rulers had added to the original pagoda until there were seven concentric rectangles, the outer one meas uring SSO X 760 meters. Aside from its size, there is little merit in the structure, as it is bare or poor in detail and design. As a whole thee Southern pagodas are the most impressive buildings in India.
There is a region in the South, Mysore. which remains an architectural mystery. Hardly touched by explorers, it promises a rich and orig inal harvest, if we can judge from the temples of the deserted cities of Baillur and Ilullabid, won derful and delicate creations, showing a sense of proportion and restraint unusual in India.