+GENERAL CHARACTER.+ All these styles possess certain traits in common. While stone and brick are both used, sandstone predominating, the details are in large measure derived from wooden prototypes. Structural lines are not followed in the exterior treatment, purely decorative considerations prevailing. Ornament is equally lavished on all parts of the building, and is bewildering in its amount and complexity. Realistic and grotesque sculpture is freely used, forming multiplied horizontal bands of extraordinary richness and minuteness of execution. Spacious and lofty interiors are rarely attempted, but wonderful effects are produced by seemingly endless repetition of columns in halls, and corridors, and by external emphasis of important parts of the plan by lofty tower-like piles of masonry. The source of the various Indian styles, the origin of the forms used, the history of their development, are all wrapped in obscurity. All the monuments show a fully developed style and great command of technical resources from the outset. When, where, and how these were attained is as yet an unsolved mystery. In all its phases previous to the Moslem conquest Indian architecture appears like an indigenous art, borrowing little from foreign styles, and having no affinities with the arts of Occidental nations. +BUDDHIST STYLE.+ Although Buddhism originated in the sixth century B.C., the earliest architectural remains of the style date from its wide promulgation in India under Asoka (272-236 B.C.). Buddhist monuments comprise three chief classes of structures: the _stupas_ or _topes_, which are mounds more or less domical in shape, enclosing relic-shrines of Buddha, or built to mark some sacred spot; _chaityas_, or temple halls, cut in the rock; and _viharas_, or monasteries. The style of the detail varies considerably in these three classes, but is in general simpler and more massive than in the other styles of India. +TOPES.+ These are found in groups, of which the most important are at or near Bhilsa in central India, at Manikyala in the northwest, at Amravati in the south, and in Ceylon at Ruanwalli and Tuparamaya. The best known among them is the +Sanchi Tope+, near Bhilsa, 120 feet in diameter and 56 feet high. It is surrounded by a richly carved stone rail or fence, with gateways of elaborate workmanship, having three sculptured lintels crossing the carved uprights. The tope at Manikyala is larger, and dates from the 7th century. It is exceeded in size by many in Ceylon, that at Abayagiri measuring 360 feet in diameter. Few of the topes retain the _tee_, or model of a shrine, which, like a lantern, once crowned each of them. Besides the topes there are a few stupas of tower-like form, square in plan, of which the most famous is that at +Buddh Gaya+, near the sacred Bodhi tree, where Buddha attained divine light in 588 B.C.