WEST AND SOUTH COASTS OF CEYLOM. 443 



The villager could give no other account of it than 

 ** that it was built by one Galgami, who dealt with evil 

 fpirits, by whofe aid he reared thefe ftruftures." Thus 

 we find the origin of all works, beyond the reach of re- 

 cent time, and vulgar knowledge, in every country at- 

 tributed to fome fupernatural agency, from the rude and 

 laborious ftrufture of Stonehenge to thofe of Elora 

 (Elloor), and the more diminutive one of Galgami. 



Though the figure of the Lingam, cow, and every ob- 

 je6l of Hindu veneration, feems purpofely removed, 

 enough remains, in the fimplicity of the ftyle of the ar- 

 chitecture and its few decorations, to afcertain its claim 

 to antiquity; and this (hews the ufe of claffing the ob- 

 je6ts of this kind we frequently meet difperfed over India. 

 In the more modern religious ftruftures of hdia (I allude 

 more particularly to thofe of the Camatick upper and 

 lower, the archite6lure of which is very different from 

 that ufed in the north-weft parts of the Dekan*), we find 

 a novel ftyle more complicated and certainly more con- 

 trary to good tafte. Thefe buildings and their cove- 

 rums or fpires are crouded with an immenfe number of 

 fmall pillars, pilafters, cornices; and the numerous and 

 ill diftributed compartments filled with monftrous, dif- 

 proportioned, figures of the deities, or rather their at- 

 tributes, which disfigure them and make a ftrange im- 

 preffion at firft fight on Europeans accuftomed to form 

 their ideas of the beauties of architecture by claftical 

 rules drawn fromi the Grecians. 



The more modern Hindu buildings are further diftin- 

 guiftied by being generally built of brick, excepting fome 

 of the greateft, as Canjeveram, Madura.^ Seringa, Rami- 

 Jur; which from their Ityle are fiippoied not to be of the 

 more ancient. The more ancient t temples are not co- 

 vered 



* A comparative view of the different ftyles of the architedure of 

 thefe building, in the Camatick upper and lower, and in the north weft 

 parts of the Dekan would be curious. 



+ The gradations in their ftyle may be traced from the fmall pyra- 

 midal ftru6tures of not above fix feet high, to the firft exhibitions of the 



figure 



