type of the monolithic shrine at Māmallapuram and of the so-called Dravidian temple.
The stūpa dome at Ajantā, in the structural form of which it is a copy, would have been made on the same principle as modern Persian bulbous domes (Pl. XLI, b), derived from Buddhist stūpas, with internal wooden ties arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Symbolically, the difference between the Saiva and Buddhist dome is that the finial of the former is the kalasha, or jar of immortality, of the latter the reliquary and the royal umbrella. An extension or slight modification of the Saiva principle of design produced the mighty pyramidal shrines of Southern India, which in the mind of the devout stood for Siva's Himālayan paradise, Mount Kailāsa, just as the towering mass of the sikhara type was a symbol of Vishnu's holy mountain. On the seashore at Māmallapuram there are two adjoining temples (Pl. XXII) which illustrate the interchange of symbolism frequently occurring in Indian temple architecture; for though both temples are of Saiva design, the smaller of the two, a five-storied one, is now dedicated to Vishnu. At the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth century a great Vaishnava movement, headed by Rāmanūja, swept over Southern India, and in this period older Saiva temples were appropriated to the Vaishnava cult, and new temples, like the Vaikuntha Perumāl temple at Conjīveram (Kānchī), were built according to the Saiva tradition, but dedicated to Vishnu. In the same way the Vaishnava sikhara temples of Northern India were appropriated by the Saiva cult, as we have already noticed.
Fergusson, in his academic classification of Indian architectural styles, labels the Saiva temples of Southern India "Dravidian," and the Vaishnava temples of the
