History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s4.61

v1.c19.s4.61

What interests us most here, however, is that the square raths are the originals from which all the vimânas in southern India were copied, and continued to be copied nearly unchanged to a very late period. Woodcut No. 195, for instance, represents one from Madurâ, erected in the 18th century. It is changed, it is true, and the cells and some of the earlier features are hardly recognisable; but the wonder rather is that eleven centuries should not have more completely obliterated all traces of the original. There is nothing, however, in it which cannot be easily recognised in intermediate examples, and their gradual transformation detected by any one familiar with the subject. On the other hand, the oblong raths were halls or porticos with the Buddhists, and became the gateways or gopurams which are frequently — indeed generally — more important parts of later Dravidian temples than the vimânas themselves. They, too, like the vimânas, retain their original