MARTAND 99
overpowering, nor too paltry to be lacking in strength and dignity, and it is easy to understand the impulse which led a people here to raise a temple to heaven.
The temple of Martand is the finest example of what is known as the Kashmirian style of architecture, and was built by the most noted of the Kashmir kings, Lalataditya, who reigned between the years 699 and 736 a.p.
Apart from its site it cannot be considered one of the really great ruins of the world; but yet there is about it a combination of massiveness and simplicity, and of solidity and grace, which have earned it fame for a thousand years. There is something of the rigidity and strength of the _Egyptian temples, and something of the grace of “Greece. Though Hindu, it differs from the usua] Hindu types; and is known distinctively as Kash- mirian. It is, hSwever, decidedly Hindu, and not either Buddhist or Jain, and owes much to the influence of Gandhara, while the sculptures show, according to Marshal, a close connection with the typical Hindu work of the late Gupta period.
