Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c10.21

c10.21

One of the last of these, the temple of Nakhon Vat above mentioned, is a vast structure exceeding Bôrôbudûr in dimensions—the outer walled enclosure of it measuring two-thirds of a mile on each of the four sides. We are not, however, concerned with the magnificence of the architecture, the details of which are given by Fergusson, but with the sculptures illustrating the Râmâyana and the Mahâbhârata which decorate the walls of the temple. They are in very low relief, as they were not, like the Bôrôbudûr sculptures, intended for an open-air light, but for the reflected light of the magnificent colonnades under shelter of which they are placed. The whole of them, about six and a half feet in height and of an aggregate length of about two thousand feet, were originally gilt.