The monuments of Oriental India, bear the impress of a settled
civilisation, at least of the tertiary period. They are comparatively
modern in principle and in date; but they furnish us, nevertheless, with
very important hints on the history of polychromy.
The frequent use of stucco, which is better made in India than anywhere
else, recals the system of the ancients, in covering their fine hewn
stonework with a very fine and hard incrustation of stucco.
The Indian edifices constitute, as it were, but a scaffolding from which
to hang the drapery forming divisions of their spaces, as in China, and
as formerly in Assyria, Egypt, and Greece.