Like the tôpe, the lât or latti (staff or post) is one of the earliest types of monument conceived by men. At first it was the simple post, or dead trunk, planted in the earth to mark a boundary, or to recall some glorious or tragic event; and the post was succeeded by the stone, raised as we find it everywhere on the whole surface of the old world, and lastly by the column. It is under this latter form that we find the lât used by the Aryans. The column, a cylindrical monolith, was always erected separately and served to inscribe the edicts of the sovereign, the dogmas of religion, or the records of a reign. It was only at a much later period that they thought of utilizing them and increasing their number to support an arch, even if this were ever done in India, for it is a curious fact that the architects of the country have always preferred to this ancient column type the low square pillar which they had copied from the roughly squared beams of their huts.

The Lions' Lât at Sanchi is a magnificent specimen of this style. It was a cylindrical shaft, polished, and without a pedestal, measuring about thirty feet; surmounted by a cupola-shaped capital, three feet in height; above which a circular plinth, encircled by sacred ducks in relief, served as a pedestal for four lions seated back to back. These animals may be considered as rivalling the masterpieces of Grecian statuary; Cunningham indeed asserts his belief that they are the work of Grecian artists, sent to the court of Asoka by Ptolemy Philadephus II. The total height of the lât, including the lions, was thirty-seven feet. It

now lies broken in several fragments beside the southern gate.

The northern lât had the same dimensions, but rested upon a square pedestal, and bore a life-size statue of the Emperor Asoka. The shaft, with the exception of the basement, has been carried away by the peasants, for whom it provided the materials for their sugar-mills; the capital and the statue surmounting it still lie on the ground.

Under the reign of Satakarni third king of Magadha of the Andhra dynasty (19-37 of the Christian Era), a new religious movement came to add to the embellishments of Sanchi. Four monumental gates were erected before the entrances of the colonnade of the great Chaitya. These marvellous triumphal arches, admirably sculptured and covered with delicate bas-reliefs, form at the present day the most interesting portion of the ruins of Sanchi; and it may be said without exaggeration that since then Asiatic art has produced nothing to be compared with them.

The design of these gates is of the extremest simplicity. The basement, formed by two vertical monoliths, supports a third monolith, placed horizontally; and above this architrave two small pilasters, placed on a line with the lower pillars, support a second horizontal monolith. The same arrangement is repeated with a third architrave, which forms the heading of the gate. The different pieces composing each gate are simply fitted in like carpenter's work by means of tenons and mortises. This shows that the architect chose his model from a monument in wood. He

probably copied the light constructions erected during the festivals, on which garlands and lamps were suspended. It now remains for us to speak of the bas-reliefs which decorate the gates. The bas-reliefs cover the four sides of the pillars and architraves. They represent the principal scenes in the life of Buddha, religious ceremonies, processions or royal cortèges, sieges and battles; and a series of more unpretending but doubly precious pictures reproduce the interiors of palaces, apartments with their furniture, and kitchens with their accessories, and, finally, dances and gymnastic exercises. A detailed description of them would of itself form a complete picture of the history and life of the Indian people during the centuries which preceded the birth of Christ. These bas-reliefs unite a wonderful execution to great elegance of design; and are all the more distinguished from everything else that Asiatic art has produced, because the artist has limited himself to portraying what he had before his eyes simply and delicately, without being compelled to have recourse to mythology for those exaggerated forms or attributes which, after his time, were destined to become the basis of Hindoo sculpture.

The capitals of the pillars are composed of groups of statues highly embossed. These groups are varied at each gate. At the northern and eastern gates they are composed of elephants in their harness, their riders bearing floating banners; at the southern gate, recumbent lions; and at the western, dwarfs, standing back to back, and supporting the architrave with their hands. The ex

tremities of the architrave are rounded in a close volute, bearing a statue of a winged lion or an elephant. The projection formed by the first architrave on each side of the gate is upheld by a design of incomparable elegance ; it is a half-naked dancer, holding herself suspended by the arms to the branches of a tree. This statue measures three feet. The body, fore part of the figure, and all the details are admirably carved, the physiognomy has all the marks of the Turanian type-the flattened nose, the eyes drawn in at the corners, and the face wider than long; and the head-dress carefully represented, rivals the most eccentric masterpieces in this style. Small pilasters form a frame to statues of cavaliers, which fill up the intervals between the architraves. Finally, on the summit of the gate are ranged the emblems of Buddha and of Dharma, six feet in height.

Of the four gates of Sanchi, that at the northern side is the only one which afforded us all these details in an almost perfect state of preservation. The eastern gate is less complete; and as for those on the southern and western sides, which were pulled down through the malice of the villagers, they exhibit no more than a picturesque heap of ruins.

Thus the Chaitya of Sanchi represents, down to the present day, the successive work of the six centuries immediately preceding Christ.

BORO-BOEDOER'

W. BASIL WORSFOLD

N the year following the English occupation (1812)

IN

Colonel Colin MacKenzie visited Brambanan, and made an accurate survey of the ruins in that neighbourhood, which he sketched and described. At the instance of the Governor, Sir Stamford Raffles, Captain Butler was then sent to make drawings of the buildings and to report upon them. This was the first methodical exploration of the Hindu ruins in Java; but it was only partial and related almost exclusively to the Brambanan neighbourhood. A quarter of a century later, when the discovery of photography had made an exact reproduction of the sculptures

1 About eighty miles westward, in the province of Kedu, is the great temple of Borobodo. It is built upon a small hill, and consists of a central dome and seven ranges of terraced walls covering the slope of the hill and forming open galleries each below the other, and communicating by steps and gateways. The central dome is fifty feet in diameter; around it is a triple circle of seventy-two towers, and the whole building is six hundred and twenty feet square and about one hundred feet high. In the terrace walls are niches containing cross-legged figures larger than life to the number of about four hundred, and both sides of all the terrace walls are covered with bas-reliefs crowded with figures and carved in hard stone; and which must therefore occupy an extent of nearly three miles in length! The amount of human labour and skill expended on the Great Pyramid of Egypt sinks into insignificance when compared with that required to complete this sculptured hill-temple in the interior of Java.-Alfred Russel Wallace.