Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c8.s5.6

c8.s5.6

being kept in their places by their own weight, superimposed one upon the other without any cementing material, and, sometimes, with a very sparing use of clamps. It thus naturally follows that when the foundations of such buildings give way the superstructure comes down like a house of cards, the blocks sliding off one another. In the more modern, mortar has been used with smaller blocks; and, the mortar being exceptionally strong, the whole has hardened into a solid mass. The temple of Ahalyabāī having been thus built, went over during a severe flood, in one mass intact. In the bed of the stream at Patunde between Chālisgāon and Vāghli, is another instance of the great tenacity of mortar in similar circumstances. It is the great square room of what appears to have been a Musalmān mausoleum, canted over off its basement into the sand at such an angle that a person may stand upon the accumulated sand outside and look down into the interior over the tops of the four walls, the dome having slid off. The four walls just hold together in an apparently uninjured state.