INDIAN FOUNTAINS 145 



pierced and carved in a beautiful floral design. 

 Shah Jahan no doubt sat here in state to see 

 the fountains in his new garden play : there 

 are a hundred and forty-four in the great tank 

 alone. Between the throne and the cascade 

 there is still one original white marble fountain 

 left — a lily bud in shape, delicately carved. 

 I In Eiirope, when speaking of fountains, the 

 actual sculpture and stone-work are, as a rule, 

 intended and understood, whereas in India 

 the term implies the water -jet itself; although 

 this was often a mere jet and not, as with us in 

 colder countries, a great volume of water gushing 

 from sculptured vases, leaping in some chosen 

 place high up into the air for the pure joy of its 

 decorative effect, or pouring from moss-grown 

 shells emptied by water nymphs into pools where 

 tritons blow their horns. In an Indian garden 

 there is water everywhere, hundreds of little 

 pearl-showering fountain jets cooling the burning 

 air, their only stone-work copied from the lotus 

 lily buds as they rise above the stream. All the 

 older fountains in the large tanks and canals are 

 variations of this theme. The form of the fully- 

 opened flower seems to have suggested the shape 

 and carving of the small tanks and chabutra 



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