Ancient Indian Architecture.
At a meeting
of the British Academy held on Wednesday, Professor A. A. MacDonnell, Boden
Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford, Fellow of the Academy, read
a paper on “The Evolution of Ancient Indian Architecture” Lord Reay presided.
Professor
MacDonnell said that, owing to the total lack of work of an historical
character in India from the rise of its literature (c. 1500 B. C.) to the
Mahomedan conquest (c. 1000 A. D.) the study of archaeology was relatively more
important in India than in perhaps any other country. But the archaeological
remains had been steadily disappearing from the face of the land. Their destruction
had been arrested by the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act passed by Lord
Curzon in 1904. The lecturer had during a recent tour of six months in India
many opportunities of observing the beneficial effects of the Act. His paper
traced through a period of nearly 2000 years the development of Indian
architecture from its earliest forms down to the fixed types of late ages. In the
pre-Buddhistic period architecture was wooden, there being no temples or carved
images of gods. The use of brick first appeared in the fifth century B. C., and
from the middle of the third century B. C. the Buddhists began to build in
stone.
BUDDHIST
ARCHITECTURE.
The
history of Buddhist architecture might be divided into three periods – 250 B.
C, 50 A. D., 50-350 A. D., 350-650 A. D. There were three classes of buildings –
stupas (topes), chaitya, (assembly halls) churches, monasteries. The stupa, a
development of the low sepulchral mound of earth, was originally a
hemispherical structure erected to enclose relics of Buddha; on the top was an
ornament (called a tee), ending in one or more umbrellas. It was shown how by
successive stages both the stupa and the tee were elongated so as to assume the
shape of a tower; the former then became attenuated, while the tee grew in
height, the umbrellas becoming roofs, till it reached its final development in
the nine storeyed Chinese pagoda, in which the stupa portion had disappeared.
The professor then traced the history of the assembly halls, wagon headed
structures with aisles and an apse, under which was placed a small stupa as an
object of veneration. The earliest were rock-cut specimens dating from the
third century B. C. and obvious stupa as an object of veneration. The stupa,
originally quite plain, had in later centuries a figure of Buddha carved on its
front, and finally (about 660 A. D.) became a hollow cell with the figures
inside. This marked the transition to Hindu architecture, in two early
specimens of which the cell was semicircular at the back and square
respectively. The monasteries originally consisted of a square hall surrounded
by a number of sleeping cubicles. Rock cut specimens alone survived, there
being altogether about 900. In the first period no figure sculpture appeared
and only towards its end four pillars supporting the ceiling were introduced. In
the second period the number of pillars was gradually increased from 12 to 28
and a sanctuary containing a figure of Buddha was introduced at the back of the
hall. The latest specimens at Ellora formed a transition to the earliest Hindu
example from which they were hardly distinguishable.
THE DRAVIDIAN
STYLE.
All
the evidence available pointed to Hindu religious architecture being derived
from earlier Buddhist types. The oldest specimens dated from about 600 A. D.
Two styles could be clearly distinguished, each showing a definite type from
the beginning – the Dravidian or South Indian, and the Indo-Aryan or North
Indian. The Dravidian temple was derived from the Buddhist monastery. Its plan
was a square base containing the cell in which the image was kept; the cell was
surmounted by a pyramidal tower, always divided into storeys and surmounted by
a small dome either circular or pyramidal. The later Dravidian temples stood in
a court surrounded by a wall, a special feature of which was the Gopuram, or
great gateway, which was opposite the temple and was surmounted by a storeyed
tower resembling that of the shrine itself. The best specimen was the great temple
at Tanjore, erected in 1025 A. D. In still later specimen successive
surrounding courts were added, each with its Gopuram. These gateways increased
in size and height as one proceeded outwards and thus entirely obscured the
tower of the central shrine. The most notable example of this defect was the
Srirangam temple near Trichinopoly, the largest in India. A feature of these
South Indian temples is their tanks surrounded by colonnades. The great temple
of Ramesvaram had magnificent corridors, one of them 700 ft. in length. These temples
had very elaborate pillars, which by about 1300 A. D. acquired a permanent type
with conventionalized animals and riders affixed to them. A variety of the
South Indian style was the Chalukyan, the best specimens of which belonged to the
12th and 13th centuries A. D.
THE
INDO-ARYAN STYLE.
The
Indo-Aryan style was found only north of the 20th degree of
latitude. Here the square cell was surmounted by a curvilinear spire with a
vertical band running up each fact, the top finished off with a fluted ornament
somewhat flattened. In the earliest specimens a porch was added in front of the
cell, but was not essential. The spire, though curved, was square in section. The
earliest specimens were found at Bhubaneswar in Orissa, beginning about 600 A.
D., and coming down to 1100 A. D. A feature in the evolution of the Northern
temples was the gradual increase in the number of the porches to four. The origin
of the Indo-Aryan spire had always been a puzzle to archaeologists. It could
not have any connexion with the pyramidal Dravidian tower, nor with the long
wagon headed Buddhist assembly hall, which had no suggestion of a spire about
it. Its prototype was to be found in the stupa. By the end of the Buddhist
period, the stupa had become a hollow cell with a squire base and an elongated
dome. In the Indo-Aryan tower the dome was further elongated and the corners of
the square base were carried up to the top on the curvilinear face, the
horizontal section of which thus became square also.
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I. N.
