Note 134 — Chapter V · CHAITYA HALLS.

The only buildings in India I know of that gave the least hint of the external forms or construction of these halls are the huts of the Todas on the Nilgiri Hills. In a work recently published by the late Mr. Breeks, of the Madras Civil Service, he gives two photographs of these dwellings, plates 8 and 9. Their roofs have precisely the same elliptical forms as the chaitya with the ridge, giving the ogee form externally, and altogether, whether by accident or design, they are miniature chaitya halls. Externally they are covered with short thatch, neatly laid on. Such forms may have existed in India two thousand years ago, and may have given rise to the peculiarities of the chaitya halls, but it is, of course, impossible to prove it.