es, they are very impressive from the richly
decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
facade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.

Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
_viharas_, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
seat of learning and art.

It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.

Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years