3*6 DRAVIDIAN STYLE. BOOK III. the square to the circular form in the upper part, nor for its peculiar ornamentation ; but that may be owing to our having none of the earlier examples. When we first meet with the form, either in Dharwar or Orissa, it is complete in all its parts, and had evidently reached that state of per- fection through long stages of tentative experience. The dis- covery of some earlier examples than we now know may one day tell us by what steps that degree of perfection was reached, but in the meanwhile I fear we must rest content with the theory just explained, which, on the whole, may be considered sufficient for present purposes at least. 1 1 In his work on the ' Antiquities of Orissa,' vol. i., Babu Rajendralal Mitra suggests at page 31 something of this sort, but if his diagram were all that is to be said in favour of the hypothesis, I would feel inclined to reject it.
