History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c31.s8.35

v2.c31.s8.35

It is curious, however, and instructive, in concluding our history of architecture as practised within the limits of India properly so called, to observe how completely we have been walking in a circle. We began by tracing how, two hundred years before Christ, a wooden style was gradually assuming lithic forms, and by degrees being elaborated into a style where hardly a reminiscence of wood remained. We conclude with finding the style of Halebîd and Bijâpûr, or Delhi, returning to forms as appropriate to carpentry but as unsuited to masonry as the rails or gateways at Bharaut or Sânchi. It might some time ago have been a question worth mooting whether it was likely it would perish by persevering in this wrong direction. That enquiry, however, seems idle now, as it is to be feared that the death-blow will be given, as at Lucknow and elsewhere, by the fatal imitation of a foreign style.