One of the great charms of this temple, when I visited it, was its purity. Neither whitewash nor red nor yellow paint had then sullied it, and the time-stain on the warm-coloured granite was all that relieved its monotony; but it sufficed, and it was a relief to contemplate it thus after some of the vulgarities I had seen. Now all this is altered. Like the pagodas at Ramisseram, and more so those at Mádura, barbarous vulgarity has done its worst, and the traveller is only too fully justified in the contempt with which he speaks of these works of a great people which have fallen into the hands of such unworthy successors. TINNEVELLY. [Illustration: 205. Half-plan of Temple at Tinnevelly. (From a Plan in the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.] Though neither among the largest nor the most splendid temples of southern India, that at Tinnevelly will serve to give a good general idea of the arrangement of these edifices, and has the advantage of having been built on one plan, and at one time, without subsequent alteration or change. Like the little cell in the Tiruvalur temple (Woodcut No. 193), it has the singularity of being a double temple, the great square being divided into equal portions, of which one is dedicated to the god Siva, the other to his consort Parvati. The preceding plan (Woodcut No. 205) represents one of the halves, which, though differing in arrangement from the other, is still so like it as to make the representation and description of one sufficient for both. The general dimensions of the whole enclosure are 508 ft. by 756 ft., the larger dimension being divided into two equal portions of 378 ft. each. There are three gateways to each half, and one in the wall dividing the two; the principal gateway faces the entrance to the temple, and the lateral ones are opposite each other. An outer portico precedes the great gateway, leading internally to a very splendid porch, which, before reaching the gateway of the inner enclosure, branches off on the right to the intermediate gateway, and on the left to the great hall of 1000 columns--10 pillars in width by 100 in depth. The inner enclosure is not concentric with the outer, and, as usual, has only one gateway. The temple itself consists of a cubical cell, surmounted by a vimana or spire, preceded by two porches, and surrounded by triple colonnades. In other parts of the enclosure are smaller temples, tanks of water, gardens, colonnades, &c., but neither so numerous nor so various as are generally found in Indian temples of this class.