A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Part 28

The great majority of Indian monuments are religious--temples, shrines, and monasteries. Secular buildings do not appear until after the Moslem conquests, and most of them are quite modern.

+GENERAL CHARACTER.+ All these styles possess certain traits in common.

While stone and brick are both used, sandstone predominating, the details are in large measure derived from wooden prototypes. Structural lines are not followed in the exterior treatment, purely decorative considerations prevailing. Ornament is equally lavished on all parts of the building, and is bewildering in its amount and complexity. Realistic and grotesque sculpture is freely used, forming multiplied horizontal bands of extraordinary richness and minuteness of execution. s.p.a.cious and lofty interiors are rarely attempted, but wonderful effects are produced by seemingly endless repet.i.tion of columns in halls, and corridors, and by external emphasis of important parts of the plan by lofty tower-like piles of masonry.

The source of the various Indian styles, the origin of the forms used, the history of their development, are all wrapped in obscurity. All the monuments show a fully developed style and great command of technical resources from the outset. When, where, and how these were attained is as yet an unsolved mystery. In all its phases previous to the Moslem conquest Indian architecture appears like an indigenous art, borrowing little from foreign styles, and having no affinities with the arts of Occidental nations.

+BUDDHIST STYLE.+ Although Buddhism originated in the sixth century B.C., the earliest architectural remains of the style date from its wide promulgation in India under Asoka (272-236 B.C.). Buddhist monuments comprise three chief cla.s.ses of structures: the _stupas_ or _topes_, which are mounds more or less domical in shape, enclosing relic-shrines of Buddha, or built to mark some sacred spot; _chaityas_, or temple halls, cut in the rock; and _viharas_, or monasteries. The style of the detail varies considerably in these three cla.s.ses, but is in general simpler and more ma.s.sive than in the other styles of India.

+TOPES.+ These are found in groups, of which the most important are at or near Bhilsa in central India, at Manikyala in the northwest, at Amravati in the south, and in Ceylon at Ruanwalli and Tuparamaya. The best known among them is the +Sanchi Tope+, near Bhilsa, 120 feet in diameter and 56 feet high. It is surrounded by a richly carved stone rail or fence, with gateways of elaborate workmanship, having three sculptured lintels crossing the carved uprights. The tope at Manikyala is larger, and dates from the 7th century. It is exceeded in size by many in Ceylon, that at Abayagiri measuring 360 feet in diameter. Few of the topes retain the _tee_, or model of a shrine, which, like a lantern, once crowned each of them.

Besides the topes there are a few stupas of tower-like form, square in plan, of which the most famous is that at +Buddh Gaya+, near the sacred Bodhi tree, where Buddha attained divine light in 588 B.C.

+CHAITYA HALLS.+ The Buddhist speos-temples--so far as known the only extant halls of worship of that religion, except one at Sanchi--are mostly in the Bombay Presidency, at Ellora, Karli, Ajunta, Na.s.sick, and Bhaja. The earliest, that at Karli, dates from 78 B.C., the latest (at Ellora), _cir._ 600 A.D. They consist uniformly of a broad nave ending in an apse, and covered by a roof like a barrel vault, and two narrow side aisles. In the apse is the _dagoba_ or relic-shrine, shaped like a miniature tope. The front of the cave was originally adorned with an open-work screen or frame of wood, while the face of the rock about the opening was carved into the semblance of a sumptuous structural facade.

Among the finest of these caverns is that at +Karli+, whose ma.s.sive columns and impressive scale recall Egyptian models, though the resemblance is superficial and has no historic significance. More suggestive is the affinity of many of the columns which stand before these caves to Persian prototypes (see Fig. 21). It is not improbable that both Persian and cla.s.sic forms were introduced into India through the Bactrian kingdom 250 years B.C. Otherwise we must seek for the origin of nearly all Buddhist forms in a pre-existing wooden architecture, now wholly perished, though its traditions may survive in the wooden screens in the fronts of the caves. While some of these caverns are extremely simple, as at Bhaja, others, especially at +Na.s.sick+ and +Ajunta+, are of great splendor and complexity.

+VIHARAS.+ Except at Gandhara in the Punjab, the structural monasteries of the Buddhists were probably all of wood and have long ago perished.

The Gandhara monasteries of Jamalgiri and Takht-i-Bahi present in plan three or four courts surrounded by cells. The centre of one court is in both cases occupied by a platform for an altar or shrine. Among the ruins there have been found a number of capitals whose strong resemblance to the Corinthian type is now generally attributed to Byzantine rather than Bactrian influences. These viharas may therefore be a.s.signed to the 6th or 7th century A.D.

The rock-cut viharas are found in the neighborhood of the chaityas already described. Architecturally, they are far more elaborate than the chaityas. Those at Salsette, Ajunta, and Bagh are particularly interesting, with pillared halls or courts, cells, corridors, and shrines. The hall of the +Great Vihara+ at +Bagh+ is 96 feet square, with 36 columns. Adjoining it is the school-room, and the whole is fronted by a sumptuous rock-cut colonnade 200 feet long. These caves were mostly hewn between the 5th and 7th centuries, at which time sculpture was more prevalent in Buddhist works than previously, and some of them are richly adorned with figures.

+JAINA STYLE.+ The religion and the architecture of the Jainas so closely resemble those of the Buddhists, that recent authorities are disposed to treat the Jaina style as a mere variation or continuation of the Buddhist. Chronologically they are separated by an interval of some three centuries, _cir._ 650-950 A.D., which have left us almost no monuments of either style. The Jaina is moreover easily distinguished from the Buddhist architecture by the great number and elaborateness of its structural monuments. The multiplication of statues of Tirthankhar in the cells about the temple courts, the exuberance of sculpture, the use of domes built in horizontal courses, and the imitation in stone of wooden braces or struts are among its distinguishing features.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 226.--PORCH OF TEMPLE ON MOUNT ABU.]

+JAINA TEMPLES.+ The earliest examples are on +Mount Abu+ in the Indian Desert. Built by Vimalah Sah in 1032, the chief of these consists of a court measuring 140 90 feet, surrounded by cells and a double colonnade. In the centre rises the shrine of the G.o.d, containing his statue, and terminating in a lofty tower or _sikhra_. An imposing columnar porch, cruciform in plan, precedes this cell (Fig. 226). The intersection of the arms is covered by a dome supported on eight columns with stone brackets or struts. The dome and columns are covered with profuse carving and sculptured figures, and the total effect is one of remarkable dignity and splendor. The temple of +Sadri+ is much more extensive, twenty minor domes and one of larger size forming cruciform porches on all four sides of the central _sikhra_. The cells about the court are each covered by a small _sikhra_, and these, with the twenty-one domes (four of which are built in three stories), all grouped about the central tower and adorned with an astonishing variety of detail, const.i.tute a monument of the first importance. It was built by Khumbo Rana, about 1450. At +Girnar+ are several 12th-century temples with enclosed instead of open vestibules. One of these, that of +Neminatha+, retains intact its court enclosure and cells, which in most other cases have perished. The temple at +Somnath+ resembles it, but is larger; the dome of its porch, 33 feet in diameter, is the largest Jaina dome in India. Other notable temples are at Gwalior, Khajuraho, and Parasnatha.

In all the Jaina temples the salient feature is the sikhra or _vimana_.

This is a tower of approximately square plan, tapering by a graceful curve toward a peculiar terminal ornament shaped like a flattened melon.

Its whole surface is variegated by horizontal bands and vertical breaks, covered with sculpture and carving. Next in importance are the domes, built wholly in horizontal courses and resting on stone lintels carried by bracketed columns. These same traits appear in relatively modern examples, as at Delhi.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 227.--TOWER OF VICTORY, CHITTORE.]

+TOWERS.+ A similar predilection for minutely broken surfaces marks the towers which sometimes adjoin the temples, as at Chittore (tower of +Sri Allat+, 13th century), or were erected as trophies of victory, like that of +Khumbo Rana+ in the same town (Fig. 227). The combination of horizontal and vertical lines, the distribution of the openings, and the rich ornamentation of these towers are very interesting, though lacking somewhat in structural propriety of design.

+HINDU STYLES: NORTHERN BRAHMAN.+ The origin of this style is as yet an unsolved problem. Its monuments were mainly built between 600 and 1200 A.D., the oldest being in Orissa, at Bhuwanesevar, Kanaruk, and Puri. In northern India the temples are about equally divided between the two forms of Brahmanism--the worship of Vishnu or _Vaishnavism_, and that of Siva or _Shaivism_--and do not differ materially in style. As in the Jaina style, the _vimana_ is their most striking feature, and this is in most cases adorned with numerous reduced copies of its own form grouped in successive stages against its sides and angles. This curious system of design appears in nearly all the great temples, both of Vishnu and Siva. The Jaina melon ornament is universal, surmounted generally by an urn-shaped finial.

In plan the vimana shrine is preceded by two or three chambers, square or polygonal, some with and some without columns. The foremost of these is covered by a roof formed like a stepped pyramid set cornerwise. The fine porch of the ruined temple at +Bindrabun+ is cruciform in plan and forms the chief part of the building, the shrine at the further end being relatively small and its tower unfinished or ruined. In some modern examples the antechamber is replaced by an open porch with a Saracenic dome, as at Benares; in others the old type is completely abandoned, as in the temple at +Kantonnuggur+ (1704-22). This is a square hall built of terra-cotta, with four three-arched porches and nine towers, more Saracenic than Brahman in general aspect.

The +Kandarya Mahadeo+, at Khajuraho, is the most noted example of the northern Brahman style, and one of the most splendid structures extant.

A strong and lofty bas.e.m.e.nt supports an extraordinary ma.s.s of roofs, covering the six open porches and the antechamber and hypostyle hall, which precede the shrine, and rising in successive pyramidal ma.s.ses until the vimana is reached which covers the shrine. This is 116 feet high, but seems much loftier, by reason of the small scale of its const.i.tuent parts and the marvellously minute decoration which covers the whole structure. The vigor of its ma.s.ses and the grand stairways which lead up to it give it a dignity unusual for its size, 60 109 feet in plan (_cir._ 1000 A.D.).

At Puri, in Orissa, the +Temple+ of +Jugganat+, with its double enclosure and numerous subordinate shrines, the Teli-ka-Mandir at Gwalior, and temples at +Udaipur+ near Bhilsa, at +Mukteswara+ in Orissa, at Chittore, Benares, and Barolli, are important examples. The few tombs erected subsequent to the Moslem conquest, combining Jaina bracket columns with Saracenic domes, and picturesquely situated palaces at Chittore (1450), Oudeypore (1580), and Gwalior, should also be mentioned.

+CHALUKYAN STYLE.+ Throughout a central zone crossing the peninsula from sea to sea about the Dekkan, and extending south to Mysore on the west, the Brahmans developed a distinct style during the later centuries of the Chalukyan dynasty. Its monuments are mainly comprised between 1050 and the Mohammedan conquest in 1310. The most notable examples of the style are found along the southwest coast, at Hullabid, Baillur, and Somnathpur.

+TEMPLES.+ Chalukyan architecture is exclusively religious and its temples are easily recognized. The plans comprise the same elements as those of the Jainas, but the Chalukyan shrine is always star-shaped externally in plan, and the vimana takes the form of a stepped pyramid instead of a curved outline. The Jaina dome is, moreover, wholly wanting. All the details are of extraordinary richness and beauty, and the breaking up of the surfaces by rectangular projections is skilfully managed so as to produce an effect of great apparent size with very moderate dimensions. All the known examples stand on raised platforms, adding materially to their dignity. Some are double temples, as at Hullabid (Fig. 228); others are triple in plan. A noticeable feature of the style is the deeply cut stratification of the lower part of the temples, each band or stratum bearing a distinct frieze of animals, figures or ornament, carved with masterly skill. Pierced stone slabs filling the window openings are also not uncommon.

The richest exemplars of the style are the temples at +Baillur+ and Somnathpur, and at Hullabid the +Kait Iswara+ and the incomplete +Double Temple+. The Kurti Stambha, or gate at Worangul, and the Great Temple at +Hamoncondah+ should also be mentioned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 228.--TEMPLE AT HULLABiD. DETAIL.]

+DRAVIDIAN STYLE.+ The Brahman monuments of southern India exhibit a style almost as strongly marked as the Chalukyan. This appears less in their details than in their general plan and conception. The Dravidian temples are not single structures, but aggregations of buildings of varied size and form, covering extensive areas enclosed by walls and entered through gates made imposing by lofty pylons called _gopuras_. As if to emphasize these superficial resemblances to Egyptian models, the sanctuary is often low and insignificant. It is preceded by much more imposing porches (_mantapas_) and hypostyle halls or _choultries_, the latter being sometimes of extraordinary extent, though seldom lofty. The choultrie, sometimes called the Hall of 1,000 Columns, is in some cases replaced by pillared corridors of great length and splendor, as at +Ramisseram+ and +Madura.+ The plans are in most cases wholly irregular, and the architecture, so far from resembling the Egyptian in its scale and ma.s.siveness, is marked by the utmost minuteness of ornament and tenuity of detail, suggesting wood and stucco rather than stone. The +Great Hall+ at Chillambaram is but 10 to 12 feet high, and the corridors at Ramisseram, 700 feet long, are but 30 feet high. The effect of _ensemble_ of the Dravidian temples is disappointing. They lack the emphasis of dominant ma.s.ses and the dignity of symmetrical and logical arrangement. The very loftiness of the gopuras makes the buildings of the group within seem low by contrast. In nearly every temple, however, some one feature attracts merited admiration by its splendor, extent, or beauty. Such are the +Choultrie+, built by Tirumalla Nayak at Madura (1623-45), measuring 333 105 feet; the corridors already mentioned at Ramisseram and in the +Great Temple+ at Madura; the gopuras at +Tarputry+ and Vellore, and the +Mantapa+ of +Parvati+ at Chillambaram (1595-1685). Very noticeable are the compound columns of this style, consisting of square piers with slender shafts coupled to them and supporting brackets, as at Chillambaram, Peroor, and Vellore; the richly banded square piers, the grotesques of rampant horses and monsters, and the endless labor bestowed upon minute carving and ornament in superposed bands.

+OTHER MONUMENTS.+ Other important temples are at Tiruvalur, Seringham, Tinevelly, and Conjeveram, all alike in general scheme of design, with enclosures varying from 300 to 1,000 feet in length and width. At +Tanjore+ is a magnificent temple with two courts, in the larger of which stands a _paG.o.da_ or shrine with a pyramidal vimana, unusual in Dravidian temples, and beside it the smaller +Shrine+ of +Soubramanya+ (Fig. 229), a structure of unusual beauty of detail. In both, the vertical lower story with its pilasters and windows is curiously suggestive of Renaissance design. The paG.o.da dates from the 14th, the smaller temple from the 15th century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 229.--SHRINE OF SOUBRAMANYA, TANJORE.]

+ROCK-CUT RATHS.+ All the above temples were built subsequently to the 12th century. The rock-cut shrines date in some cases as far back as the 7th century; they are called _kylas_ and _raths_, and are not caves, but isolated edifices, imitating structural designs, but hewn bodily from the rock. Those at Mahavellipore are of diminutive size; but at +Purudkul+ there is an extensive temple with shrine, choultrie, and gopura surrounded by a court enclosure measuring 250 150 feet (9th century). More famous still is the elaborate +Kylas+ at +Ellora+, of about the same size as the above, but more complex and complete in its details.

+PALACES.+ At Madura, Tanjore, and Vijayanagar are Dravidian palaces, built after the Mohammedan conquest and in a mixed style. The domical octagonal throne-room and the +Great Hall+ at Madura (17th century), the most famous edifices of the kind, were evidently inspired from Gothic models, but how this came about is not known. The Great Hall with its pointed arched barrel vault of 67 feet span, its cusped arches, round piers, vaulting shafts, and triforium, appears strangely foreign to its surroundings.

+CAMBODIA.+ The subject of Indian architecture cannot be dismissed without at least brief mention of the immense temple of +Nakhon Wat+ in Cambodia. This stupendous creation covers an area of a full square mile, with its concentric courts, its encircling moat or lake, its causeways, porches, and shrines, dominated by a central structure 200 feet square with nine paG.o.da-like towers. The corridors around the inner court have square piers of almost cla.s.sic Roman type. The rich carving, the perfect masonry, and the admirable composition of the whole leading up to the central ma.s.s, indicate architectural ability of a high order.

+CHINESE ARCHITECTURE.+ No purely Mongolian nation appears ever to have erected buildings of first-rate importance. It cannot be denied, however, that the Chinese are possessed of considerable decorative skill and mechanical ingenuity; and these qualities are the most prominent elements in their buildings. Great size and splendor, ma.s.siveness and originality of construction, they do not possess. Built in large measure of wood, cleverly framed and decorated with a certain richness of color and ornament, with a large element of the grotesque in the decoration, the Chinese temples, paG.o.das, and palaces are interesting rather than impressive. There is not a single architectural monument of imposing size or of great antiquity, so far as we know. The celebrated +Porcelain Tower+ of Nankin is no longer extant, having been destroyed in the Taeping rebellion in 1850. It was a nine-storied polygonal paG.o.da 236 feet high, revetted with porcelain tiles, and was built in 1412. The largest of Chinese temples, that of the +Great Dragon+ at Pekin, is a circular structure of moderate size, though its enclosure is nearly a mile square. PaG.o.das with diminishing stories, elaborately carved entrance gates and successive terraces are mainly relied upon for effect. They show little structural art, but much clever ornament. Like the monasteries and the vast _lamaseries_ of Thibet, they belong to the Buddhist religion.

Aside from the ingenious framing and bracketing of the carpentry, the most striking peculiarity of Chinese buildings is their broad-spreading tiled roofs. These invariably slope downward in a curve, and the tiling, with its hip-ridges, crestings, and finials in terra-cotta or metal, adds materially to the picturesqueness of the general effect. Color and gilding are freely used, and in some cases--as in a summer pavilion at Pekin--porcelain tiling covers the walls, with brilliant effect. The chief wonder is that this resource of the architectural decorator has not been further developed in China, where porcelain and earthenware are otherwise treated with such remarkable skill.

+j.a.pANESE ARCHITECTURE.+ Apparently a.s.sociated in race with the Chinese and Koreans, the j.a.panese are far more artistic in temperament than either of their neighbors. The refinement and originality of their decorative art have given it a wide reputation. Unfortunately the prevalence of earthquakes has combined with the influence of the traditional habits of the people to prevent the maturing of a truly monumental architecture. Except for the terraces, gates, and enclosures of their palaces and temples, wood is the predominant building material.

It is used substantially as in China, the framing, dovetailing, bracketing, broad eaves and tiled roofs of j.a.pan closely resembling those of China. The chief difference is in the greater refinement and delicacy of the j.a.panese details and the more monumental disposition of the temple terraces, the beauty of which is greatly enhanced by skillful landscape gardening. The gateways recall somewhat those of the Sanchi Tope in India (p. 403), but are commonly of wood. Owing to the danger from earthquakes, lofty towers and paG.o.das are rarely seen.

The domestic architecture of j.a.pan, though interesting for its arrangements, and for its sensible and artistic use of the most flimsy materials, is too trivial in scale, detail, and construction to receive more than pa.s.sing reference. Even the great palace at Tokio,[28]

covering an immense area, is almost entirely composed of one-storied buildings of wood, with little of splendor or architectural dignity.

[Footnote 28: See Transactions R.I.B.A., 52d year, 1886, article by R. J. Conder, pp. 185-214.]

+MONUMENTS+ (additional to those in text). BUDDHIST: Topes at Sanchi, Sonari, Satdara, Andher, in Central India; at Sarnath, near Benares; at Jelalabad and Salsette; in Ceylon at Anuradhapura, Tuparamaya, Lankaramaya.--Grotto temples (chaityas), mainly in Bombay and Bengal Presidencies; at Behar, especially the Lomash Rishi, and Cuttack; at Bhaja, Bedsa, Ajunta, and Ellora (Wiswakarma Cave); in Salsette, the Kenheri Cave.--Viharas: Structural at Nalanda and Sarnath, demolished; rock-cut in Bengal, at Cuttack, Udayagiri (the Ganesa); in the west, many at Ajunta, also at Bagh, Bedsa, Bhaja, Na.s.sick (the Nahapana, Vadnya Sri, etc.), Salsette, Ellora (the Dekrivaria, etc.). In Nepal, stupas of Swayanbunath and Bouddhama.

JAINA: Temples at Aiwulli, Kanaruc (Black PaG.o.da), and Purudkul; groups of temples at Palitana, Gimar, Mount Abu, Somnath, Parisnath; the Sas Bahu at Gwalior, 1093; Parswanatha and Ganthai (650) at Khajuraho; temple at Gyraspore, 7th century; modern temples at Ahmedabad (Huttising), Delhi, and Sonaghur; in the south at Moodbidri, Sravana Belgula; towers at Chittore.

NORTHERN BRAHMAN: Temples, Parasumareswara (500 A.D.), Mukteswara, and Great Temple (600-650), all at Bhuwaneswar, among many others; of Papanatha at Purudkul; grotto temples at Dhumnar, Ellora, and Poonah; temples at Chandravati, Udaipur, and Amritsur (the last modern); tombs of Singram Sing and others at Oudeypore; of Rajah Baktawar at Ulwar, and others at Goverdhun; ghats or landings at Benares and elsewhere.