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Architecture in Ancient
and Medieval India
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Art and Architecture always develop in an environment of economic prosperity. In the Indian subcontinent, though architecture began very early, it made rapid developments starting from the Gupta age which is considered to be the most prosperous age of ancient Indian history. The Gupta period, not coincidentally, was also remarkable for a religious and intellectual renaissance which is depicted in the architecture of the age. A nice connection indeed!
1.1 Architecture of the Harappan period
The Harappan civilization is the oldest known civilization of the Indian subcontinent. Hence, that is the starting point for the study of Indian Architecture. The earliest ‘big buildings’ in India were built by this civilisation in the Indus River valley, about 2500 BC. The Harappan buildings included high brick walls around their cities to keep out enemies. Most of the buildings were ordinary houses, with rooms arranged around a small courtyard. Probably some families owned a whole house (and lived in it with their slaves), while others rented only one room in a house, and the whole family lived together in the one room.
The rulers built bigger buildings and a town warehouse for storing wheat and barley, also out of mud-brick and baked brick. Like the houses, these bigger buildings were square or rectangular, with small courtyards in the middle. They used arches, but, like the Sumerians and the Egyptians, they only used them underground, as drains or foundations for buildings.
The Harappans were advanced for their time, especially in architecture. Each city in the Indus Valley was surrounded by massive walls and gateways. The walls were built to control trade and also to stop the city from being flooded. Each part of the city was made up of walled sections. Each section included different buildings such as: Public buildings, houses, markets, and craft workshops. Houses and other buildings were made of sun-dried or kiln-fired mud brick. These bricks were so strong, that they have stood up to thousands of years of wear (today’s bricks would turn red/green with envy!). Each house had an indoor and outdoor kitchen. The outdoor kitchen would possibly be used when it was warmer so that the oven wouldn't heat up the house , and the indoor kitchen for use when it was col der. In present day, village houses in this region e.g. in Kachchh, have two kitchens – outdoor and indoor. They used the indoor kitchen mostly as store house. They used it as a cooking place only during the rains. This is because people used dry shrub and cow dung as cooking fuel which was very smoky and made indoor cooking difficult. So far, no unequivocal examples of temples have been found at sites belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization. Archaeologists do not know yet what religion was practiced in the Indus Valley Civilization. Community water pools swimming or bathing do exist, which may be linked with religion practice. Water plays an important role in Hindu sacred places, and pilgrimage to such places often involves sacred bathing apart from bathing in the Ganges. The architecture of water pools used by Hindu pilgrimage and in Harappan cities are similar, although scholars disagree whether such similarities are functional, or cultural, in nature.
Artifacts and clues discovered at Mohenjo-Daro have allowed archaeologists to reconstruct this civilization. The similarities in plan and construction between Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa indicate that they were part of a unified government with extreme organization. Both cities were constructed of the same type and shape of bricks. The two cities may have existed simultaneously and their sizes suggest that they served as capitals of their provinces. It is important to note that hundreds of other Indus Valley civilisation sites have been discovered spread across modern-day Pakistan and India.
So far, no temples have been found at sites belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization. Archaeologists do not know yet what religion was practiced in the Indus Valley Civilization. Community water pools do exist, which may be linked with religion practice. As mentioned earlier, water plays an important role in Hindu sacred places, and pilgrimage to such places often involves sacred bathing.
2.0 THE GUPTA PERIOD
2.1 Architecture
Although the political supremacy of the Guptas ended about 550 A.D., the culture in general, and the type of art in particular, ushered in by them continued for a century or even a little more. Hence the whole period between 300 to 600 or 650 A.D. may be said to constitute the Gupta Age.
The Gupta architecture continues the tradition of the old and at the same time marks the beginning of a new age. The stupas and the rock-cut caves (both chaitya-halls and Viharas) continue the old forms, but possess striking novelty. The Dhamekh stupa at Sarnath, probably of the sixth century A.D., consisting of a circular stone drum with a cylindrical mass of brickworks above it and rising to a height of 128 ft., shows the final form of evolution of this type or structure. The caves notably those at Ajanta (Nos. XVI, XVII, XIX), while retaining the essential features of old, strike an altogether new line by the great beauty of their pillars of varied design and the fine paintings with which the inner walls and ceiling are decorated. Other notable groups of rock-cut monasteries and chaitya-halls are those of Ellora.
2.1.1 The Dhamekh Stupa at Sarnath
The structural chaitya-halls and the Hindu temples with apsidal ends follow the old traditions. Small flat-roofed temple, sometimes surrounded by pillared halls, arc characteristic of the early Gupta period and the small but elegant temple at Sanchi furnishes a good example. But a few shrines, with a sikhara on the roof, usher in a new style in North India which later came to be adopted all over the country. Though these temples of the Gupta period were neither imposing in dimensions nor very beautiful in design, they mark the beginning of the temple architecture, properly so called, in North India, which was destined to exercise profound influence even in far-off lands. Two best examples of this type are furnished by the brick temple at Bhitargaon and the Dasavatara temple at Deogarh.
2.2 Sculpture
It is in the domain of sculpture that the Gupta period witnessed the highest development of art in India. The figures of Buddha, found in large number at Sarnath and other places, show a fully evolved form which was regarded as the model for succeeding ages in and outside India. It was derived from the Mathura type and owes nothing to Greek or any other foreign influence. Indeed the Gupta sculpture may be regarded as typically Indian and classic in every sense of the term. As a great art critic has observed the "Gupta art marks the zenith in a perfectly normal cycle of artistic evolution." The fine image of Buddha at Sarnath exhibits at once the grace and refinement as well as delicacy and repose, and offers a unique combination of perfection in technique with the expression of the highest spiritual conception which makes it a masterpiece.
2.2.1 The seated Buddha image at Sarnath
This high quality generally marks also the figures of Brahmanical gods as illustrated by the images of Shiva, Vishnu and others in the sculptured panels of the Deogarh temple. On the whole the evolution of the perfect type of divinities may be said to be the chief glory of Gupta sculpture. These divine images not only possess beautiful figures, at once charming and dignified, but are also beaming with a radiant spiritual expression. These characteristics, to a more or less degree, are present in all the figure sculptures, both human and mythical.
2.2.2 Lord Vishnu reclining on AdiSesha - Deogarh Temple
The beauty and charm which distinguishes human figures is equally present in the terracottas and decorative sculptures which are at once vigorous and well designed. The deeply carved scrolls, with rich foliage and diminutive human and animal figures, deserve the highest praise for their naturalism and beautiful execution.
2.3 Metal-working
The Gupta artists and craftsman were no less capable in working metals. The famous iron pillar at Delhi, near the Qutub Minar, is a marvel of metallurgical skill.
2.3.1 The Iron Pillar at Delhi
The art of casting copper statues on a large scale by the cire perdue process (lost wax casting) was practiced with success. A copper image of Buddha, about 80 feet high was erected at Nalanda in Bihar at the close of the sixth century; and the fine Sultanganj Buddha, 7.5 feet high, is still to be seen in the Museum at Birmingham.
2.3.2 80 feet Buddha at Nalanda, Bihar
In general, a sublime idealism, combined with a highly developed sense of rhythm and beauty, characterises the Gupta sculptures, and there is vigour and refinement in their design and execution. The intellectual element dominates Gupta art and keeps under control the highly developed emotional display and the exuberance of decorative elements which characterise the art of succeeding ages.
2.4 Painting
Literary evidence leaves no doubt that the art of painting was cultivated in India from very remote times, for decorative paintings in walls of houses and lifelike portraits are referred to in the canonical Pali texts as well as in the Epics. But the most ancient extant paintings in India do not go back more than a century or two before the Christian Era. These are painted frescoes in the Jogimara cave of the Ramgarh hill in the Surguja State, MP. Traces of paintings also exist in the Bedsa cave and probably belong to the 3rd century AD.
But the best fresco painting in India is illustrated in the series of Ajanta caves constructed between the first and seventh century A.D. These caves are 29 in number and even as late as 1879 A.D. traces of painting remained in sixteen caves. Much has disappeared since and what remains today is only a very small fragment of the pictures which originally adorned the walls and ceilings of the caves.
The bulk of the paintings undoubtedly belong to the period 400-640 AD, and was mainly executed under the patronage of the Vakataka and the Chalukya kings. Although the pictures are termed frescoes, the process is somewhat different from that which is understood by that term in European painting. In Ajanta the rock-walls of the caves were first covered by a mixture of clay, cowdung, and pulverized traprock, and then a thin coating of fine white plaster was applied. The ground thus prepared was carefully smoothed and kept moistened, and this produced a surface on which the design was first sketched and then painted, the usual colours being white, red and brown in various shades, a dull green, and blue.
The pictures depict figures of Buddha and various episodes of his present and past lives i.e. Jataka stories. Animal and vegetable world is drawn upon in profusion for ornamental decorations, and the designs are as varied and graceful as they are fanciful.
As regards the technical skill and aesthetic value of these paintings the following observations of Griffiths, who spent 13 years closely studying them, may be said to represent the general views -
"In spite of its obvious limitations, I find the work so accomplished in execution, so consistent in convention, so vivacious and varied in design, and full of such evident delight in beautiful form and colour, that I cannot help ranking it with some of the early art which the world has agreed to praise in Italy… The Ajanta workmanship is admirable; long subtle curves are drawn with great precision in a line of unvarying thickness with one sweep of the brush; the touch is often bold and vigorous, the handling broad, and in some cases the impasto is as solid as in the best Pompeian work ... The draperies, too, are thoroughly understood and though the folds may be some what conventionally drawn, they express most thoroughly the peculiarities of the Oriental treatment of unsewn cloth... For the purpose of art education no better examples could be placed before an Indian art student than those to be found in the caves of Ajanta. Here we have art with life in it, human faces full of expression, limbs drawn with grace and action, flowers which bloom, birds which soar, and beasts that spring, or fight, or patiently carry burdens; all are taken from Nature's book -growing after her pattern, and in this respect differing entirely from Muhammadan art, which is unreal, unnatural, and therefore incapable of development."
A Danish artist, who has published a valuable professional criticism of Ajanta paintings, declares that "they represent the climax to which genuine Indian art has attained'; and that ‘everything in these pictures from the composition as a whole to the smallest pearl or flowers’ testifies to depth of insight coupled with the greatest skill."
Some fine specimens of Indian paintings adorned the caves at Bagh, a village in the Gwalior State, even as late as 19th century but very little of them now remains. These paintings possessed the same high quality as those at Ajanta and probably belonged to the 6th or first half of the 7th century A.D.
3.0 POST GUPTA AGE
3.1 Architecture
3.1.1 Rock Cut Temples
During the period of six hundred years that followed the Gupta age we find a remarkable development in architecture. As before we have only specimens of religious structure. The rock-cut caves now enter the final phase of development and are gradually replaced by structural buildings. Nevertheless we have a few fine examples such as the Brahmanical series (as distinguished from the earlier Buddhist ones) at Ellora, and the fine Brahmanical temples at Elephanta and Salsette islands (near Bombay), all excavated between the 7th and 9th century A.D. Somewhat earlier than these are (1) a number of pillared halls, and (2) the seven monolithic temples popularly called rathas or Pagodas at Mamallapuram, 35 miles south of Madras, erected respectively by the Pallava kings Mahendravarman and Narasimhavarman in the 7th century A.D. The rathas culminated in a complete reproduction of massive structural temple cut out of rock, of which the unique example, unrivalled anywhere else in the world is furnished by the Kailasa temple at Ellora built by the Rashtrakuta king Krishna.
An entire hill-side was cut off to the extent of 160 ft. by 280 ft., and was converted into a magnificent monolithic temple with spacious halls and finely carved pillars. Fergusson refers to it as "one of the most singular and interesting monuments of architectural art in India," and V. Smith calls it "the most extensive and sumptuous of the rock-cut shrines," and "the most marvellous architectural freak in India."
The Jain caves at Ellora (800-950 A.D.) bring to an end, for all practical purposes, the rock-cut architecture of India, whose gradual evolution we can trace from the days of Asoka. They were gradually superseded by the structural examples i.e. temples built by means of dressed stone masonry, which is undoubtedly the more normal and rational mode of construction, once the technique had sufficiently developed.
3.1.2 Structural temples
Structural temples may be broadly divided into two classes, according to the shape of the sikhara i.e., the towering superstructure above the sanctum containing the image of the god. Those in North Indian temples look like a solid tower with curvilinear vertical ribs, bulging in the middle and ending in a very narrow necking covered by a distinct ribbed piece of round stone known as amalaka. The sikharas in Southern India have the appearance of straight-lined pyramidal towers, made up of a series of gradually receding stories divided by horizontal bands, and ending in a dome, or occasionally, a barrel-roofed ridge. Both the North and South Indian sikharas are decorated with sculptures, which often, specially in the former, take the form of miniature reproduction of the sikhara itself. According to geographical distribution these two styles of architecture are known respectively as North Indian or Indo-Aryan and South Indian or Dravidian.
3.1.3 North Indian style
The large number of temples at Bhubhaneshwar in Odisha illustrate the evolution of the North Indian style. The temples consisted mainly of two parts, the cella or sanctum {garbha-griha) roofed by the sikhara, and a mandapa or porch in front covered by a low pyramidal roof.
Of the numerous temples at Bhubhanesvar, the Muktesvara, Rajarani, and the Lingaraja (the Great Temple) with its sikhara, 160 ft. in height, are the three best specimens.
The famous but dilapidated temple at Konark is remarkable for its marvellous sculptures and the beautifully designed pyramidal roof of the porch, happily intact, which has been praised as ''the most perfectly proportioned structure." The temple of Jagannath at Puri is also another fine specimen.
From the Odisha coast on the east to Kashmir on the west, the whole of North India was studded with temples of this style. An important group of them is found at Khajuraho, the capital of the Chandellas, and they were built by the rulers of this dynasty between 900 and 1150 A.D. A beautiful variation of this style, found in Rajputana and Gujarat, "is characterized by a free use of columns, carved with all imaginable richness, strut brackets, and exquisite marble ceilings with cusped pendants." The two best specimens of this style are those at Mt. Abu, built wholly of white marble in 1031 and 1230. A.D. "The beauty and delicacy of the carving and the richness of design" of these two temples surpass all description.
The Sun Temple at Konark: We get a vivid idea of the splendour and magnificence of these North Indian temples from the following account of the temples of Mathura by Al Utbi, Secretary to Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.
"In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and finer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted." The Sultan thus wrote respecting it: "If any should wish to construct a building equal to this, he should not be able to do it without expending an hundred thousand thousand red dinars and it would occupy two hundred years, even though the most experienced and able workmen were employed."
Among the idols there were five made of red gold, each five yards high, fixed in the air without support. In the eyes of one of these idols there were two rubies of such value, that if any one were to sell such as are like them, he would obtain fifty thousand dinars. On another, there was a sapphire purer than water and more sparkling than crystal; the weight was four hundred and fifty miskals. The two feet of another idol weighed four thousand four hundred miskals, and the entire quantity of gold yielded by the bodies of these idols was ninety-eight thousand three hundfed miskals. The idols of silver amounted to two hundred, but they could not be weighed without breaking them into pieces and putting them into scales. The Sultan gave orders that all temples should be burnt with naphtha and fire, and leveled.
3.1.4 South Indian style
The earliest examples of the Dravidian style are the rock-cut temple known as Dharmaaraja-ratha at Mamallapuram and the structural temples at Kanchi, known as Kailasanatha and the Vaikuntha Perumal, all built by the Pallava kings. The first is a monolithic structure which, along with six others on the same site, is known as the seven rathas or Pagodas, and shows the ingenuity of the Pallava artists.
The Cholas, who succeeded the Pallavas as the dominant political power in the south, were mighty builders. They built, among others, two magnificent temples at Tanjore and Gangaikondacholapuram in the Trichinopoly District. The great Siva temple at Tanjore is 'the largest, highest and the most ambitious' religious structure in India. The temple is 180 feet long; the base of the sanctum is 82 square and two stories.
3.1.5 Temples in the Deccan
The Deccan plateau had at first no independent style of its own, and we find temples of both North and South Indian style at Aihole, Badami and Pattadakal. From after 1000 A.D., however, we find some notable changes gradually leading to the evolution of a distinct style, which some regard as intermediate in type between North and South Indian styles, and others, merely as a variation of the latter with hardly any influence of the former.
The low pyramidal sikharas of these temples, however, undoubtedly has the appearance of a blending of the northern and southern types, and in height and composition may be regarded as intermediate between the two. The influence of the North Indian style is clearly emphasised by the introduction of miniature North Indian sikhara as a decorative element. There is, however, no doubt that the influence of the South Indian style is more marked.
Most of the temples of this type were built by or during the reigns of the Later Chalukya and Hoysala kings. Hence the new style is often called after these royal dynasties, Chalukya, Hoysala or Chalukya-Hoysala. Apart from the shape of the sikhara, these temples, which are mostly found in modern Mysore, are characterised by a richly carved base or plinth, supporting a polygonal or star-shaped temple. The wealth and variety of sculptures on the base is unrivalled in any buildings, ancient or modern, and the Hoysala temples are appropriately referred to "as one of the most marvellous exhibitions of human labour to be found even in the patient east."
The Hoysalesvara temple at Dorasamudra is the best example of this style. It really consists of two temples built side by side and connected by the adjacent transepts. Each of these is 112 ft long and 100 ft. wide, and cruciform in plan, so that its exterior shows a large number of projections and angular surfaces. The two structures with their nandi pavilions rest on a platform having angles corresponding to those of the main buildings. Its entire external elevation of 25 ft. is covered by a continuous series of moldings above which begin the big sculptured figures on the wall. These are, undoubtedly, some of the finest creations of mankind.
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