visited by Hiuen
Tsang; who describes it as having three storeys, six halls,
three towers, and accommodation for a thousand monks. "On it,"
says Hiuen Tsang, "the utmost skill of the artist has been
employed; the ornamentation is in the richest colors, and the
statue of Buddha is cast in gold and silver, decorated with gems
and precious stones."

A revolution took place in architecture in this age: the
Buddhist style was abandoned, for something which, says Mrs.
Flora Annie Steel: *

".....more ornate, less self-evident, served to reflect the
new and elaborate pretensions of the priesthood."

------
* To whose book _India through the Ages,_ I am indebted for these
facts concerning the Gupta Age.
------

It is summed up, says Mrs. Steel, in the words:

"...._cucumber and gourd_... tall curved vimanas or towers,
exactly like two thirds of a cucumber stuck in the ground and
surmounted by a flat gourd-like 'amalika.' .... Exquisite in
detail, perfect in the design and execution of their ornamentation,
the form of these temples leaves much to be desired. The flat
blob at the top seems to crush down the vague aspirings of
the cucumber, which, even if unstopped, must erelong have
ended in an earthward curve again."

The age culminated in the next reign, that of Chandragupta II
Vikramaditya. Heaven knows how to distingusih between him and
his half-mythological namesake of B.C. 58 and Ujjain. Very
possibly the Nine Gems of Literature and Kalidasa and _The Ring
of Sakoontala_ belong to this reign really. At any rate it
was a wonderful time. Fa-hien, the Chinese Buddhist traveler,
obligingly visited India during its process, and left a picture
of conditions. Personal liberty, says Mrs. Steel, was the
keynote feature. There was no capital punishment; no hard
pressure of the laws; there were excellent hospitals and
charitable institutions of all sorts.--We are to see in the whole
age, I imagine, a period of great brilliance, and of humaneness
resulting from eight centuries of the really civilizing influence
of Buddhism: far higher conditions than you should have found
elsewhere to east or west at that time;--and also, the moment
when the impulse of culture had reached its outward limit, and
the reaction against the spiritual sources of culture began.

Chandragupta Vikramaditya reigned until 413; Kumaragupta, great
and successful also, until 455. Then, thirteen decades after
Samudragupta's accession