vast, but stable, and suited for the accommodation of great multitudes to witness a lofty ritual. In their struggle to accomplish this they developed intellectual powers which impress us still through their works. No such lofty aims exercised the intellectual faculties of the Hindu. His altar and the statue of his god were placed in a dark cubical cell wholly without ornament, and the porch that preceded that was not necessarily either lofty or spacious. What the Hindu architect craved for, was a place to display his powers of ornamentation, and he thought he had accomplished all his art demanded when he covered every part of his building with the most elaborate and most difficult designs he could invent. Much of this ornamentation, it is true, is very elegant, and evidences of power and labour do impress the human imagination, often even in defiance of our better judgment, and nowhere is this more apparent than in these Dravidian temples. It is in vain, however, we look among them for any manifestation of those lofty aims and noble results which constitute the merit and the greatness of true architectural art, and which generally characterise the best works in the true styles of the western world. * * * * * Turning from these generalities to the temples themselves, the first great difficulty experienced in attempting either to classify or describe them is that no plans of them exist. I know myself upwards of thirty great Dravidian temples, or groups of temples, any one of which must have cost as much to build as an English cathedral, some a great deal more; but of all these there are only three, or it may be four, of which even a moderately trustworthy plan is available. Two-thirds of these have been sufficiently photographed by Dr. Hunter, Capt. Lyon,[374] and others; the remaining third I know either from personal inspection or from drawings and descriptions. This is, of course, irrespective of village temples, and, it may be, of some extensive groups which have been overlooked. If these temples had been built like those of the Greeks, or even as the Christian churches in the Middle Ages, on one uniform plan, changing only with the progress of time, one or two plans might have sufficed; but the fact is that, in nine cases out of ten, Dravidian temples are a fortuitous aggregation of parts, arranged without plan, as accident dictated at the time of their erection; and, without plans, no adequate idea can be conveyed to those who have not seen them. The one great exception to this rule is to be found at Tanjore. The great Pagoda there was commenced on a well-defined and stately plan, which was persevered in till its completion. As will be seen from the annexed diagram (Woodcut No. 190) it consists of two courts,[375] one a square of about 250 ft., originally devoted to minor shrines and residences; but when the temple was fortified by the French in 1777[376] it was converted into an arsenal, and has not been