History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c25.s8.64

v2.c25.s8.64

in Gujarât; in this tradition records the marriage of a Hûna (Hun) prince to a Râjputnî bride, for which purpose it is fabled to have been erected;¹ but whether this is so or not, it is one of the finest examples of such detached halls known in the north. We miss here the octagonal dome of the Jains, which would have given elegance and relief to its ceiling, though the variety in the spacing of the columns has been attained by a different process. When the dome was first employed in Hindû architecture, they seem to have attempted to gain sufficient relief to their otherwise monotonous arrangement of columns by breaking up the external outline of the plan of the mandapa, and by ranging the aisles, as it were, diagonally across the building, instead of placing them parallel to the sides.