Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt, and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India, according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have all perished. We know, however, nothing about them. The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and only the façades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called _stupas_, or _topes_. The earliest of these are single columns; but the later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds, resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork. In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great peculiarity of all Indian architectural monuments is excessive ornamentation rather than beauty of proportion or grand effect.