The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c7.375

v1.c7.375

But whatever the origin or the age of ancient Indian architecture, looking to it as a whole it appears perfectly self-evolved, self-contained, and independent of all extraneous admixture. It has its peculiar rules, its proportions, its particular features,—all bearing impress of a style that has grown from within,—a style which expresses in itself what the people, for whom, and by whom, it was designed, thought, and felt, and meant, and not what was supplied to them by aliens in creed, colour and race. A few insignificant ornaments apart, its merits and its defects are all its own, and the different forms it has assumed in different provinces are all modifications, or adaptations, to local circumstances, of one primitive idea. It may, therefore, be treated by itself without reference to foreign art.