THE SEVEN PAGODAS. 



157 



The whole design of the temple at first sight strongly recalled 

 to me the Lycian rock>cut tombs, figured on pages 204, 205 of 

 Fergusson's Architecture, Yolume I (1865), and its central orna- 

 ment, in like manner, recalled the double-storey ed cylindrical (?) 

 tomb monument at Amrith, given at page 208. It also recalled 

 the " Surkh Minar " at Cabul, figured at page 56 of Fergusson's 

 History of Indian and Eastern Architecture (1876). The some- 

 what similar fagade ornaments of the great waggon-roofed mono- 

 lith of Bhima (No. 42), and of the apsidal Eatha (No. 41), seem 

 to be only single, and to surmount a cell or shrine-niche to which 

 they merely form a bell-domed roof. 



The likeness to the lingam occurred to me the more readily 

 perhaps from my having only recently visited the great lingam 

 at Padavedu near Arani, standing on the hillock at the entrance 

 of the valley and known as Linga-kunnu. 



At page 167 of his History of Indian and Eastern Architecture 

 (1876), Mr. Fcrgusson favours the idea that the lingam of Siva is 

 originally a miniature dagoba. In the great waggon-roofed 

 monolith the domed pillar which I have called a dagoba orna- 

 ment surmounts a cell or shrine-niche. Here it would rather 

 seem to be the object of veneration itself. 3 



The basement of this monolithic temple is about 20 feet 

 long north south and 1 1' 6" wide ; and on the north, east and south 

 sides is very plain, being merely a flat wall ornamented with 

 simple semi-octagonal pillars or pilasters with slight necks, flat- 

 tened capitals, and plain brackets, &c, of the prevalent style 

 here. 



There is a portico or projecting verandah all along the west 

 side, and with the exception of a narrow panel at each end 

 containing a human dvarapal warder, wearing a tall cap and 

 armed with a club or mace, the greater part of the west front is 

 open, but broken into three bays by a couple of sixteen-sided 



3 In the Lahore Museum is a tall cylindrical pier with spheroidal top just 

 like the lingam only having a human face standing out in relief from the 

 shaft, and affording a plain hint of one stage of the transmutation of the 

 Buddhist stup a into the modern lingam or Mahadeo stone. This significant 

 and unique relic was exhumed, I think, near Jhelam in the Panjab. 



