These stupas, known as dagabas in Ceylon, and chaityas in Nepal, are called _topes_ in the ordinary patois of upper India. They consisted of a low circular drum supporting a hemispherical dome of less diameter and leaving a ramp or berme round it of a few feet in width. Round the drum was an open passage for circumambulation, and the whole was enclosed by a massive stone railing with lofty gates on four sides. These railings and gateways are their principal architectural features; the rails are constructed as closely as possible after wooden patterns, and examples are still found at Sanchi and Buddh-Gaya[1]; what remained of the Bharahat stupa was transferred to the Calcutta Museum, and portions of the Amravati rail are now in the British and Madras museums. The uprights and cross bars of the rails were in many cases covered with elaborate carvings of scenes of the most varied kinds, and are illustrative of manners and customs as well as of the art of sculpture. [Illustration: PLATE I. FIG. 8.--SANCHI NORTH GATEWAY. _Photo, F. Frith & Co._ FIG. 9.--THE KUTB MINAR NEAR DELHI. _Photo lent by the India Office._ FIG. 10.--SHER SHAH'S MOSQUE AT DELHI.] [Illustration: PLATE II. FIG. 11.--GREAT TEMPLE AT HALEBID. FIG. 12.--ROOF OF DOME OF VIMALA'S TEMPLE ON MOUNT ABU. (_From Photographs kindly lent by the India Office._)] The great stupa at Sanchi in Bhopal is now the most entire of the class, as it still retains the gateways--styled _torans_--which must have been a feature of all stupas, though perhaps mostly in wood (see Plate I. fig. 8). The whole of the superstructure of the Sanchi examples is essentially wooden in character, and we are astonished that it should have stood "for twenty centuries nearly uninjured." These torans reappear to this day in Japan as _tori-i_ and in China as _p'ai-lus_ or _p'ai-fangs_. The whole of the surfaces, inside and out, are carved with elaborate sculptures of much interest. A cast of the eastern toran from Sanchi is to be seen in the museums at S. Kensington, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris and Berlin. On the southern one, an inscription appears to indicate that it was erected about 150 B.C. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--Cave at Karli near Bombay. Section and plan.]