Nature and Art, June 1, 18G7.] 
THE AECHITECTURE OF INDIA. 
177 
seem — in these days of “ competitive designs ” for 
public buildings — a very curious manner in which 
the architect of that period submitted his design 
to the king. “ The bricklayers were assembled by 
beat of drum ; and the Rajah inquired from the 
architect, ‘ in what form dost thou propose to 
construct the Chaitya 1 ’ The architect, taking 
some water in the palm of his hand, dashed it into 
a golden vessel full of water ; and pointing to a 
hemispherical bubble of air, which stood for a 
moment on the surface, he said, ‘ I will build it in 
that form.’ ” The drawing of the Thuparamaya 
Dagopa (lig. 6) will show the form of those erected 
in Ceylon, and it will indicate how the architect 
carried out the design which he produced for the 
Rajah Dutthagamini. The long slender stone 
pillars, with large capitals, which surround the 
Dagopa, are peculiar to this design. 
The identification of these Dagopas or Topes with 
the pyramids of Egypt can scarcely be resisted ; 
both are essentially sepulchral in their character ; 
and both are mounds of building covering or 
inclosing human remains, the only difference being 
that the external form of one is square and pointed, 
while the other is circular and dome-shaped. 
Although there can be no doubt about the greater 
antiquity of the pyramids, yet these Buddhist 
remains in India are undoubtedly the more literal 
descendants of the most ancient type of tombs, 
that is, the tumulus or mound of earth heaped 
over the burial place, remnants of which are found 
all over the world. “ In India the Buddhists 
conformed to the long -established practice of 
burning their dead, and the tomb became not 
the receptacle of a body but of a relic. As in 
mediaeval Europe, the sarcophagus became a stone 
altar. No one can doubt that the Tope is the 
lineal descendant of the . Tumidus ; but wherever 
it was an object of veneration by the Buddhists, 
it was so as containing some relic of some saint, 
not as a sepulchre covering the mortal remains of 
either king or priest.”* 
This opinion of Mr. Fergusson’s is confirmed by 
General Cunningham in his work on the Bilsah 
Tope ; he says, “ It appears also that Stupas had 
been erected over supreme monarchs prior to 
Sakya’s (Buddha) advent, for Sakya particularly 
informs his disciple Ananda, that, over the remains 
of a Chakravarti Rajah, ‘they build the thupo at a 
spot where four principal roads meet.’ It is clear, 
therefore, that the Tope or ‘ Tumulus ’ was the 
common form of tombs at that period. In fact, 
the Tope, as its name implies, is nothing more than 
a regularly built cairn or pile of stones, which was 
undoubtedly the oldest form of funeral memento.” 
(P. 11.) 
These quotations indicate the very ancient 
genealogy of this architecture, and its importance 
as a means of throwing light back on the earliest 
times, not only of Indian races, but over the other 
parts of the world where a cairn of stones or a 
mound of earth was the primitive form of burial. 
* Fergussoifs “ History of Architecture,” vol. ii., p. 478. 
II. 
Dr. Clarke, when describing the vast quantities 
of tumuli in the southern part of Russia, points 
out the same identity between them and the 
pyramid. He says, “ whether under the form of a 
mound in Scandinavia, in Russia, or in North 
America; a barrow in England ; a cairn in Wales 
and Scotland, or in Ireland ; or of those heaps 
which the modern Greeks and Turks call Tepe ; or 
lastly, in the more artificial shape of a pyramid in 
Egypt, they had universally the same origin.” 
(Vol. i., p. 277.) From such authorities we may 
accept as conclusive, that from the mound or cairn 
came the Tope and pyramid ; and very strong 
evidence could be adduced to show that the dome 
and spire are only another growth — or perhaps 
extension of growth — from the same source ; the 
universality of the dome on all eastern tombs is 
almost enough in itself to identify it with the Tope ; 
this is a tempting subject, but it would be out of 
our purpose to follow it farther. 
It may be worth adding at this point that the 
elevation of the Birs Nimrod, or Borsippa, given in 
Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” which is now the ac- 
cepted Tower of Babel, or at least the probable 
type upon which that Tower was built, is only 
a variation of the pyramid or Tope. 
Near to Bilsah, in Central India, there must 
have been, in Buddhist times, a vast city, and 
whose existence is only revealed to us by the ruins 
of a number of Topes. On a small hill at the 
village of Sanchi-Khan-a-Kerri, stands what is 
generally called the Bilsah Tope ; it is the central 
one in this group, smaller ones being scattered 
about for some miles. It is, speaking roughly, 
upwards of one hundred feet in diameter, and about 
fifty or sixty feet in height. The plan and section 
(fig. 1 and 2) of it given in the plate will convey an 
accurate idea of this most interesting specimen of 
Indian architecture. It is about the oldest building 
in India, according to Cunningham, who thinks 
that “ the Tope was itself in existence in b.c. 443, 
that the massive stone railing was erected in the 
reign of Asoka between 260 and 250 b.c., and that 
the gateways were erected in the reign of Sri 
Satakarni between the years 37 and 19 A.D.” Its 
construction was of bricks, with mud for mortar, 
and an outer casing of dressed stones, the whole 
being covered with four inches of cement. It is 
now a complete ruin, covered over with long grass, 
bushes, and eveiy weed which a tropical climate 
can produce. From numerous sculptures of Topes 
on the gateways, as Avell as from other sources, we 
know that there would be an erection on the 
summit, which is now denominated a “ tee.” This 
is sketched into the section with dotted lines. 
A sculptured Tope is given in the plate (fig. 3), and 
over it is the “ triple canopy.” A Dagopa from the 
caves of Ajunta is also given (fig. 6), which shows 
the Tee and the three umbrellas ; they are often 
represented, as in this last, by figures like an 
inverted saucer. This is an indication of a later 
style, all the most ancient pi’eserve the character of 
an actual umbrella, such as that from the sculpture 
at Bilsah ; garlands hang from the latter, and 
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