instability of all things, the frailty of human life, on the grief and sorrows of our existence, comparing life to a water-bubble, consisting of the four elements and still perishing so quickly. The water-bubble thus lent its form to the tope and _daghopa_, which latter, according to W. v. Humboldt, means ‘hider of the body,’ destined for the reception of Buddha’s relics. The tower which rises inside the tope is symbolic of the nine incarnations of Vishnu. We have in the Indian temple, as in our Gothic churches, a homily in stone. The arched dome has to remind us of the perishableness of life; the daghopa, with its seven or nine divisions, tells us that there is hope for the immortal soul to reach heaven through seven or nine degrees of purification. The protecting canopies (umbrellas) are symbolic of Buddha’s intercession, which he is sure to accord, if we only recognise the _nihilism_ (nothingness) of our earthly existence. The religious construction was also extended to every-day utensils, a tendency which was universal with all the people of the Aryan group. To these typical ornamentations belong the lotus flower and the tree and serpent ornament. The religious conception is everything with the Indian. It is not the form itself that he cares for, but the religious thought which is expressed emblematically, allegorically, or symbolically. This is the reason why he clings to his fourteen-armed divinities. It is God and His powers that he wishes to represent; but, whenever man attempts to express the incomprehensible or the abstract in visible and concrete forms, he errs. The soul of the Indian is absorbed in God: in Him is everything; the world is _without_ Him and still _within_ Him. All beings take their origin in Him and return to Him. An everlasting _emanation_ and _absorption_ is continually proceeding before the eyes of the Indian, and, looking for a type of this wonderful process, he found it in the ‘_Aswatha_’ tree, the Indian fig-tree (_Ficus Indica_). The banyan takes root, so to speak, in the air, grows downwards, grasps the earth with its branches, shoots upwards again, and repeats this process ‘ad infinitum.’ Everything coming near its feelers is embraced, covered over, and in this mystic encircling, annihilated. From time immemorial this sacred tree has been the _tree of life_, the symbolic tree of the petrifaction, vivification, and incarnation of God’s spirit in minerals, plants, animals and man. This pantheistic conception is not favourable to art: it crushes the powers of the artist, who has to deal with too great an ideal weight in forms.