OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL 105 



disposed in vertical ribs as in Roman or Gothic vaidts. The same 

 motive, moreover, is often indefinitely repeated, representing, as it 

 were, miniatures of the tower or some other part which it decorates. 

 To these features may be added a predilection for minute and pro- 

 fuse ornament, consisting almost exclusively of sculpture and carv- 

 ing. "What the Hindu architect craved for," says Ferguson,'^ the 

 great authority on the architecture of India, "was a place to dis- 

 play his powers of ornamentation, and he thought he accomplished 

 all his art demanded w^hen he covered every part of a building with 

 the most elaborate and most difficult designs he could invent." The 

 differences either in form or plan of Hindu temples, as illustrated by 

 extant buUdings, answer rather geographical and racial divisions 

 than variations of creed, and there are accordingly distinguished 

 three leading styles : 



1. The northern, in vogue in the vast region between the Hima- 

 laj^an and Vindhyan Mountains. It is also called the Indo-Aryan 



. style, because in those parts of India the people are generally known 

 as Aryans and speak dialects derived from the Sanskrit language. 



2. The Chalukyan style, so called after the dynasty which reigned 

 from the sixth to the tenth century A. D. over the most of the Dekkan. 

 It is therefore also called the Dekkan style, and is applied to the 

 architecture of the broad zone between the Narbadda and Kistnah 

 Rivers in central India. 



3. The Dravidian style, in southern India, the territory nearly 

 identical with tlie Madras Presidency, which is inhabited by peoples 

 speaking Dravidian tongues. 



1. The northern or Indo-Aryan style: Its main characteristic 

 is the bulging curved tower over the shrine, tapering upw^ard and 

 crowned with the amalaka, so called from its supposed resemblance 

 to a fruit of that name (Phyllanthus emhlica), but which appears 

 more like a melon or large gourd (as seen in the dome of the model). 

 The square plan of the shrine is often rendered slightly cruciform by 

 the addition of slender rectangular projections in the center of each 

 fagade. Thus style, in one variety or another, has prevailed in 

 north India from the sixth century A. D. to the present. The finest 

 examples are assigned to the period between 950 and 1200 A. D., 

 and the temple of Bhuvaneswar in Orissa, dating from 650 A. D., 

 is considered one of the landmarks of this style. 



2. The Chalukyan style: The shrine is polygonal, star shaped in 

 plan with stepped conical, rather low roof and vaselike ornament 

 crowning the summit. Sometimes two or even three shrines are 

 grouped round a central hall and connected by a comm.on porch. 



" James Ferguson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, revised and edited with additions by 

 James Burgess and R. Phene Spiers, London, 1910, p. 352. 



61551—29 8 



