Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/579

CHAP. III. P'AI-LUS. 475 although the upper portions are copied from wooden construc- tions, the entrance doorways have semi - circular arches and belong therefore to arcuated and not trabeated construction. Probably the Chinese would have spent more pains on their tombs had they not hit on the happy device of separating the monument from the sepulchre. We do so in exceptional cases, when we erect statues and pillars or other monuments to our great men on hill-tops or in market-places ; but as a rule, a 503. P'ai-lu at Amoy. (From Fisher's ' China Illustrated.') man's monument is placed where his body is laid, though it would probably be difficult to assign a good logical reason for the practice. The great peculiarity of China is that in nine cases out of ten they effect these objects by processes which are exactly the reverse of those of Europe, and in most cases it is not easy to decide which is best. In erecting the P'ai-lu, or monument, in a conspicuous place apart from the sepulchre, they seem to have shown their usual common sense, though an architect must regret that the designs of their tombs suffered in consequence, and have none of that magnificence which we should expect among a people at all times so addicted to ancestral worship as the Chinese. In an historical point of view, the most curious thing con- nected with these P'ai-lus seems to be, that at Sanchi, before