been a necessary means of producing stability in bambu or wooden structures of this kind, and the symbolism is peculiarly appropriate for a Buddhist shrine. An inner dome, such as is used in Persia at the present day, to serve as a support for the wheel and for the king-post to which the ribs of the dome were attached at the crown, is a natural development of the same structural principle. But that Persia borrowed the lotus dome from India is certain, for bent bambu in roof-construction is peculiarly an Indian method. Its application to domes is clearly indicated in the domed canopy shown on the Sānchī gateway (Pl. XXI, b), which is the prototype of the so-called Dravidian temple dome and also of the Ajantā stūpa-domes.
The appropriate name, "lotus dome," is not my invention: it was given to it by Indian craftsmen who worshipped the rising sun as the mystic world-lotus and carved its petals at the neck (griva) and crown (mahā-padma) of the dome. The Indian lotus dome is the technical modification of the primitive hemispherical dome of Mesopotamia, due to the use of bambu and thatch instead of clay in the forest asrams. In the same way the curvilinear sikhara is the technical modification of the conical hut of Mesopotamian and Persian villages. In both cases the forms were fully developed constructively in India many centuries before Indian craftsmen were pressed into the service of Islam and applied the same principle to the roofing of mosques in Arabia and Persia, and eventually to mosques in India.
