Egyptian architecture, simply from the enormous scale of everything it produced, was always dignified and it had also the merit of severe simplicity; but mere size can scarcely be rated as an artistic quality of a high order, and on that account it cannot compare favourably with the art of the Greeks, who were probably inspired by what they saw in Egypt, but who, in their own work, succeeded in combining the qualities of majesty and beauty without resorting to the use of extraordinary materials. III. ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. It would, perhaps, be reasonable to suppose that in India, where the Aryan race had its origin, the earliest traces of dawning art would be found. It has, however, been fairly well established that all remnants of very ancient art, which may have existed there in former times, have now virtually disappeared, and that at present there are no remains in Hindostan of a remoter antiquity than the second or third century before the Christian era. The architecture of India loses much of its interest for us from the fact of its having had no influence upon the origin or development of the European styles of building, which, starting in Egypt and Assyria, formed a continuous chain, each linked with its predecessor and successor down to modern times. The Indians were, in fact, never a migratory or colonizing race of people, and their architecture was a distinctly native production, executed in accordance with the rules laid down by the priests in their sacred books, having no affinity with the constructive principles of the Western world and showing no trace of the arts practised by Western nations, except in the slight resemblance of a few mouldings and fragments of sculpture. The chief structures of the country are temples, pagodas, and dagobas, which are found in many different parts of the peninsular and adjacent islands, resembling each other in general style, but with some local peculiarities which have caused them to be usually classified in certain comprehensive divisions, of which the following are the most important: The Buddhist style, including the stambhas or lats, a species of commemorative pillar, the stupas or topes, of which the best examples are found at Sarnath and Manikyala, and the viharas of Bengal. The Dravidian style, exemplified in the temples of Chidambaram, Tanjore, Combaconum, and Madura, and the rock-cut temples of Mahavellipore, and those known as the Kylas at Ellora. The Indo-Aryan, or Northern, comprising the temples of Kanaruc, Bhuwaneswur, Jajepur, and Cuttack, in the province of Orissa.