The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c13.54

c13.54

Excepting the roof, all the details—the pillars and pilasters; the chhajas; the rows of cells surrounding the procession-path on the first floor, etc.—are the same as in the four-storied pyramidal monastery last described. At each end of the great hall or temple in the upper storey a Siva shrine is sculptured under a richly carved gable, which in Europe would be said to be a masterpiece of Gothic craftsmanship. The brackets which support the arches under the barge-boards are identical with those which afterwards appeared in Akbar’s buildings. Under the eaves, on each of the long sides of the building, are five other projecting shrines, three large and two small, placed opposite to the five monastic cells. They are flanked by pilasters of the same design as the pillars of the ground floor, and are covered by sun-window roofs in dormer fashion. The ridge of the roof was intended to be crowned by a row of eighteen *kalasas* (water-pot finials), but these were never finished, like many other details. In the original building most probably the whole of the upper storey, including the roof, would have been built of brick and plaster, like the fifteenth-century mosques of Gaur, the construction of which was derived from Bengali prototypes. In the Jahângîrî Mahall at Agra there is a similar vaulted roof built of stone slabs, and Indian builders were as capable in the seventh century as in the fifteenth of using stone for such a purpose. Even in Asoka's buildings the choice of the material depended upon the supply available in different localities. There were skilled carpenters where wood was plentiful, skilled bricklayers where bricks were used, and equally skilled masons where stone was most abundant.