636 On the Buddhist Emblem of Architecture. [No. 165. 



I have thus, I trust, sufficiently explained why this Bull's or Ox's 

 skull, typical in Boodhism of the highest grade, the Boodhithatwa, is 

 represented as pertaining to Death ; that end being itself most essen- 

 tially necessary to the fulfilment of perfection. 



Rose, or Rosette. 



We now come to the last of these emblems, which I propose to discuss ; 

 viz. the Rose-shaped Ornament often found occupying, like the preced- 

 ing, the metopes of friezes. This ornament is, I believe, generally styled a 

 " Patera," by practical architects, and is held to be a representation of the 

 dish which was employed in the presentation of offerings among the An- 

 tients ; but it must be a singular sort of a dish to have the petals and 

 stamens of a Rose. It is met with under variously altered forms, some- 

 times presenting a type so vitiated, as to have lost almost all its floral 

 characteristics ; but it is much more similar to a Rose, than is the 

 so-called Rose Ornament of the Corinthian Abacus, which we shall have 

 occasion to discuss more fully. In the case of modern buildings, 

 where, on account of their public character, attention has been paid to 

 their details, I have observed that this ornament has preserved, if I may 

 use the expression, its botany ; whereas in private, or carelessly execut- 

 ed edifices, it is difficult at times to recognise it. It is found alternat- 

 ing with a sort of lily-formed flower at the base of the Doric capital 

 immediately above the Astragal. 



Considering it then, as I did from the very first, as a Rose ; it was as 

 I have remarked in the commencement of this paper, the only one of 

 these ornaments to which I could not immediately apply a Boodhistical 

 interpretation. Still, as Boodhism was so fond of recording her ideas in 

 symbols, and as she was by no means restricted in her choice to the 

 animal kingdom, and as this emblem, from its occupying the position 

 of others importing " supremacy and perfection," must necessarily have 

 had a kindred power ; it appeared to me in fullest keeping, that the 

 Rose should be there, as the most appropriate deputy from the floral 

 regions of Creation, the fittest representative " after its kind" of such 

 high qualities. It was therefore with no small delight that I found this 

 regal flower occupying a place in Boodhist sculptury, which left no 

 ambiguity to its meaning ; and in a position identical with that in 

 which it is often found in modern Architecture, viz. on each side, and 



