lavished. The structural importance of the shrine was augmented, not only by increasing the height of the steeple, but by piling numerous small replicas of the steeple itself upon the sides of it—by which an effect of great monumental dignity was attained. The builders, also, who devoted their whole lives to the service of the deity, thereby acquired merit for themselves, just as the Brahmans did by the repetition of mantras, or the pilgrim by his constant pacing round the holy shrine.
The magnificent royal chapels built in the course of many centuries by the Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu dynasties of Northern India are a proof that the restrictions thus imposed upon the master-builder's initiative did not deaden his creative powers—the decadence of Indian architecture was due to other causes.
Kanauj, Benares, Ujjain, Mathurā, Gaur or Lak nauti, and other important capitals of ancient India, where one would expect to find the most splendid royal chapels built by the powerful dynasties of Aryāvarta before Muhammadan times, were repeatedly sacked and destroyed by the iconoclasts of Islam. But volumes might be devoted to those which remain at other places to illustrate the development of the sikhara type of temple, built in brick and stone, from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries.
The most remarkable group, after that of Bhuvanēshvar, is at Khajurāho, in Central India, formerly the capital of the Chandēla dynasty, now a deserted place lying about 150 miles south-east of Gwalior. Here about thirty royal chapels are monuments of the palmy days of the Chandēl kingdom, from about a.d. 950 to 1050, when it held a strong front against the attacks of Islam, and its dominions covered the districts now
