History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s15.3

v1.c19.s15.3

The date of the porch at Pêrûr (3 miles south-west of Koimbatur) is ascertained within narrow limits by the figure of a sepoy loading a musket being carved on the base of one of its pillars, and his costume and the shape of his arm are exactly those we find in contemporary pictures of the wars of Aurangzîb, or the early Mârâthas in the beginning of the 18th century. As shown in Woodcut No. 234, the bracket shafts are there attached to the piers as in Tirumalai Nâyyak's buildings, and though the general character of the architecture is the same, there is a coarseness in the details, and a marked inferiority in the figure-sculpture, that betrays the distance of date between these two examples.