Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/84

56 JAINA ARCHITECTURE. BOOK V. An important group of ancient temples is reported at Osia, a decayed town about 32 miles north of Jodhpur. Among them is a Jaina temple of considerable size, which an inscription indicates as having been founded originally in the latter part of the 8th century ; and the Hindu temples may belong to somewhere about the same period. A careful survey of them might be helpful in settling the age of other monuments by supplying fresh links in the chronometric scale. As before mentioned, the Buddhists, though employing circular roofs, and in all ages building topes with domical forms externally, do not seem to have attempted an internal dome, in stone at least. It is a feature of both Hindu and Jaina architecture, and is specially prevalent among the northern Jains, though, why this particular sect should have adopted it, and why they should have persevered in using it through so long a period, are questions we are not yet in a position to answer. It was an essential feature in the architecture of the Moslims before they 294. Porch of Hindft Temple at Amwa, near Ajanta. (From a Photograph by Major Gill.) came into India, and they consequently eagerly seized on the domes of Hindus and Jains when they first arrived there, and afterwards from them worked out that domical style which is one of the most marked characteristics of their art in India.