I. ORIENTAL SCULPTURE. India and the neighbouring Countries. SCULPTURE in India is chiefly accessory to archi- tecture, and the subjects represented are almost exclusively religious. The earliest monuments of sculpture, as of architecture, in India, date from the rise into power of Asoka, about 250 B.C. They consist principally of reliefs on the outsides of pagodas, rock temples, and topes ; groups or figures in the round being almost unknown. In the ruined city of Mahabalipooram, near Madras, there still stand ancient Hindoo temples on which are fine groups of Indian Gods and Goddesses carved out of the living rock in high and low relief. On the walls of a pagoda at Perwuttum there are some remarkable bas-reliefs representing a tiger-hunt, in which mounted horsemen are charging at full gallop. The reliefs on the entrance of the great Dagoba or Tope of Sanchi are animated battle -scenes, in which armed men are seen on foot, or riding on elephants or horses. A cast of this gateway is in the India section of the South Kensington Museum, together with a small model of the Dagoba itself. Huge images of Buddha, and of Hindoo divinities, abound in every part of India and the neighbouring islands. In Bamiyan, in the west, is a statue 120 ft. high, and in Ceylon there are several 90 ft. high. In the
