Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/395

(339) BOOK VIII. FURTHER INDIA. CHAPTER I. BURMA. CONTENTS. Introductory Types of Religious Buildings Circular Pagodas Square Temples, etc. Ruins of Thaton, Prome, and Pagan Monasteries. INTRODUCTORY. THE styles of architecture described in the preceding chapters of this work practically exhaust the enumeration of all those which were practised in India Proper, with its adjacent island of Ceylon, from the earliest dawn of our knowledge till the present day. It might, therefore, be possible to treat their description as a work complete in itself, and to conclude without reference to other styles practised in neighbouring countries. It will add, however, immensely, not only to the interest but to the completeness of the work, if the history is continued through the architectural forms of those countries which adopted religions originating in India, and borrowed with them archi- tectural forms which expressed, with more or less distinctness, how far their religious beliefs differed from, or agreed with, those of the country from which they were derived. The first of these countries to which we naturally turn is Burma, which adopted the religion of 5akyamuni at a very early period, and borrowed also many of the Indian forms of architecture, but with differences we are now at a loss to account for. It may be, that, as we know nothing practically of the architectural forms of the Lower Bengal provinces before the beginning of the 6th century, these forms may have been taken to Prome and Pegu before that time; or it may be that a