CHAP. II. CONCLUSION. assume that it belongs to the later part of the nth or to the 1 2th century. 1 CONCLUSION. The above may be considered as a somewhat meagre account of one of the most complete and interesting styles of Indian architecture. It would, however, be impossible to do it justice without an amount of illustration incompatible with the scope of this work, and with details drawn on a larger scale than its pages admit of. 2 An attempted classification, though merely tentative, has on several occasions been made in order to attract attention to the subject, in hopes that some one with opportunities and know- ledge might examine and revise it. With only such photographs as are available to depend upon, we can come to no satisfactory conclusions : at best they give only a partial, literally one-sided view of a building, and to ascertain its age we ought to be able to look all round it, and make ourselves familiar with its locality and surroundings. The thing will not be satisfactorily done till some one visits Orissa who has sufficient knowledge of the principles of archaeology to arrange the temples in a chrono- metric scale ; and this should not be difficult, the buildings are so uniform in character, and their architects expressed so simply and unaffectedly the feelings and art of their age. A good monograph of the Orissan style would convey a more correct idea of what Indian art really is than a similar account of any other style we are acquainted with in India. From the erection of the temples of Para.mrame.ywar and others, perhaps in the 7th century, to that of Jagannath at Puri, A.D. 1 100, the style steadily progresses without admixture of foreign elements, while the examples are so numerous that one might be found for every fifty years of the period, and we might thus have a chronometric scale of Hindu art during these centuries that would be invaluable for application to other places or styles. It is also in Orissa and Kalinga, if anywhere, that we may hope to find the incunabula that will explain much that is now mysterious in the forms of the temples and the origin of many parts of their ornamentation. 1 The editor is indebted to Babu Monmohan Chakravarti, B.A., for valu- able information bearing on the contents of this chapter and of that on the Orissa caves, as also for the use of photographs and notes on these temples which have formed the basis of the above account. 2 Thirty years ago it was hoped that Rajendralal Mitra's work would, to some extent at least, have supplied the deficiency of the first draft of this outline ; but this expectation was not realised by its publication in 1880. With a moderate knowledge of the science of archaeology and accuracy of observation it would not have been very difficult to arrange the temples in some sort of approximate sequence determined by careful study of the style. Nor has much information in this direction been added since.
