INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. The development of architectural art in India is of the highest interest for the history of the subject; and whatever may be our estimate of its aesthetic qualities, we can hardly fail to realize that Indian builders attained with marked success the aims they had before them, though they employed arrangements and adopted forms and details very different from those of western builders in ancient and medieval times. These forms and adaptations, of course, require study properly to understand them, and to recognize the adjustment of the designs to their purposes. But besides the scientific advantages of such a study, it has been well remarked by Fergusson, to whose genius the history of Indian architecture is so specially due as its creator, that "it will undoubtedly be conceded by those who are familiar with the subject that, for certain qualities, the Indian buildings are unrivalled. They display an exuberance of fancy, a lavishness of labour, and an elaboration of detail to be found nowhere else." Besides, if anywhere the history of a country is imprinted in its architecture, it is in India that it throws the most continuous, distinct and varied light on that history. In the early architecture of India, as in that of Burma, China and Japan till the present day, wood was solely or almost solely employed; and it was only about the 3rd century B.C. that stone became largely used as the material for important structures; if brick or stone were in use previously, it was only for foundations and engineering purposes. Even at the end of the 4th century B.C. Megasthenes states that Pataliputra, the capital of Chandragupta--the Sandrokottos of Greek writers--was "surrounded by a wooden wall pierced with loop-holes for the discharge of arrows." And if the capital were defended by such palisading, we may fairly infer that the architecture of the time was wholly wooden. On the Sanchi gateways, brick walls are indeed represented, but apparently only as fences or limits with serrated copings, but not in architectural structures. And at whatever date stone came to be introduced, the Hindus continued and repeated the forms they had employed in the earlier material, and preserved their own style, so that it bore witness to the general antecedent use of wood. Hence we are able to trace its conversion into lithic forms until finally its origin disappears in its absorption in later styles. India possesses no historical work to afford us a landmark previous to the invasion of Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C., nor do we know of an architectural monument of earlier date. For later periods there are fortunately a few examples dated by inscriptions, and for others by applying the scientific principles developed by Thomas Rickman for the discrimination of other styles and the relative ages of architectural works, we are enabled to arrange the monuments of India approximately in chronological sequence or order of succession.