The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c8.22

c8.22

I think, however, it is a great error to suppose that thatched or wooden roofs were universal in the India of Asoka’s time, merely because the sculptures of Bharhut, Sânchî, and Amarâvatî give no indication of any other. Professor Rhys Davids tells us that the old Pâli writings describe great houses with a flat roof called the *uparî-pâsâdatala*, “where the owner sat, usually under a pavilion, which answered the purpose at once of a drawing-room, an office, and a dining-hall.”³ Such houses—with the entrance through a large gateway, to the right and left of which were storehouses leading into an inner courtyard surrounded by living-apartments—correspond exactly with the terraced-roof mansions of modern Rajputana; and there is every reason to believe that in localities where wood was scarce, brick and stone houses of this type were built in Asoka’s time as they are to-day.