(_From Photographs kindly lent by the India Office._)]
The great stupa at Sanchi in Bhopal is now the most entire of the class,
as it still retains the gateways--styled _torans_--which must have been
a feature of all stupas, though perhaps mostly in wood (see Plate I.
fig. 8). The whole of the superstructure of the Sanchi examples is
essentially wooden in character, and we are astonished that it should
have stood "for twenty centuries nearly uninjured." These torans
reappear to this day in Japan as _tori-i_ and in China as _p'ai-lus_ or
_p'ai-fangs_. The whole of the surfaces, inside and out, are carved with
elaborate sculptures of much interest. A cast of the eastern toran from
Sanchi is to be seen in the museums at S. Kensington, Edinburgh, Dublin,
Paris and Berlin. On the southern one, an inscription appears to
indicate that it was erected about 150 B.C.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Cave at Karli near Bombay. Section and plan.]
The earlier cave temples are of about the same age as the stupas; some
of those in Behar bear inscriptions of Asoka and of his successor in the
2nd century B.C. And the earlier cave façades in western India indicate
the identity of style and construction in the patterns from which both
must have been copied. These Buddhist rock excavations are of two types:
the chaitya or chapel caves, with vaulted roofs of considerable height,
the earliest with wooden fronts and later with a screen wall left in the
rock, but in both forms with a large horse-shoe shaped window over the
entrance. The interior usually consisted of a nave, separated from the
side aisles by pillars, and containing a chaitya or small stupa at the
inner and circular end. The façades of these chaitya chapels were
covered with sculpture--some of them very richly; and to protect them
from the weather a screen was contrived and cut in the rock in front of
the façade, with large windows in the upper half for the entrance of
light. This mode of lighting by a great arch over the entrance has
attracted considerable attention, as being admirably adapted for its
purpose. As Fergusson remarked, "nothing invented before or since is
lighted so perfectly, and the disposition of the parts or interior for
an assembly of the faithful ... is what the Christians nearly reached in
after-times but never quite equalled."
The second type of rock excavations are known as viharas or monasteries
devoted to the residence of monks and ascetics. They usually consisted
of a hall surrounded by a number of cells--the earliest with stone beds
in them. In the later viharas there was a shrine in the centre of the
back wall containing a large image of the Buddha. In the Orissa caves,
near Cuttach, we have a series of excavations that do not conform to
these arrangements: they are early, dating as far back as the 2nd
century B.C., but they belong to the Jain sect, which dates from the
same age as the Buddhist.
On the north-west frontiers of India, about the Swat and Yusufzai
districts, anciently known as Gandhara, are found a remarkable class of
remains, much ruined, but that must have abounded in sculptures
belonging to the Buddhist cult. It is among these we find the first
representations of Buddha and of the characters belonging to the
Buddhist pantheon. The influence of classical art manifested in these
images leaves no doubt that they were modelled after western patterns,
carried thither by Greeks or brought from the Levant by Buddhist
emissaries. The scenes depicted, however, have frequently an
architectural setting in which we find represented façades with pillars
fashioned with distinctly Corinthian capitals. These sculptures we can
now assign with confidence, from dated epigraphs, to dates from the last
years of the century B.C. till the 4th century A.D. One inscription of
A.D. 47 is of a king Gondophernes, who is mentioned in the legend of the
apostle Thomas.
In the time of the great Gupta dynasty, from about A.D. 320 to 500, the
architectural forms developed in variety and richness of decoration. To
the columns were given higher square bases than before, and sometimes a
sur-base; the capitals, which previously had a vase as the chief member,
were developed by a foliaged ornament, springing from the mouth of the
vase and falling down upon it from the four corners, and so lending
strength to the neck whilst converting the round capital into a square
support for the abacus. Often, too, a similar arrangement of foliage was
applied to the early bases; and this form quite superseded the
Persepolitan pillar, with its bell-shaped capital, which now disappeared
from Indian art. The shafts were round or of sixteen or more sides;
pilasters were ornamented on the shafts; and the spires of the temple
were simple in outline and rose almost vertically at first and curving
inwards towards the summit, which was always capped by a large circular
fluted disk supporting a vase, whilst the surface of the tower was
covered with a peculiar sort of horse-shoe diaper. This style prevailed
all over Hindustan, and was continued with modifications varying with
age and locality down almost to the Mahommedan conquest.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Plan of Temple of Martand.]
In Kashmir from the 8th century, if not earlier, till the Mahommedan
conquest we find a style of architecture possessing a certain
quasi-classical element which has little if any connexion with the art
of the rest of India. The best-known example of this Kashmir style is
the temple of Martand, about 3 m. east from Islamabad or Anatnag, the
old capital. It stands in a court 220 ft. long by 142 ft. wide
surrounded by the ruins of some eighty small cells, with a large
entrance porch at the east end. The temple itself was 60 ft. long by 38
ft. wide, with two wings, and consisted of two apartments--a _naos_ and
_cella_. The trefoiled or cusped arch on the doors of the temple and
cells is a striking peculiarity of the style, and may have been derived
from the section of the Buddhist _chaitya_. It is used decoratively,
however, rather than constructively. The pillars and pilasters of the
portico and temple bear a close resemblance to some of the later forms
of the Roman Doric, and have usually sixteen shallow flutes on the
shafts, with numerous members in the base and capital. A triangular
pediment surmounts the doorways, and on gable-ends or projecting faces
are representations of double sloping roofs, much in the style of modern
Kashmir wooden roofs, of which also many of the temple-roofs in Nepal
are exaggerated examples. The Martand temple was, in all probability,
built in the 8th century, between A.D. 725 and 760, and was erected as a
temple of the Sun, one of whose names is Martand. For, till the 12th
century at least, Sun-worship was quite prevalent in the north and west
of India. At a remote village called Buniar is a much better preserved
specimen of the style: and at Avantipur, Vangath, Payer and Pandrethan
are other interesting examples of the style. That at Pandrethan about 3
m. from Srinagar is a well-preserved little temple, built between A.D.
906 and 921, and perhaps exhibits the most clearly the characteristics
of the style.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Temple of Pandrethan.]
In the Himalayas the architecture is still largely wooden, raised on
stone basements and is often picturesque. In the Nepal valley we meet
with hemispherical chaityas or stupas on low bases with lofty brick
spires, and some of them of great antiquity, along with temples having
three or four storeys divided by sloping roofs, and others in the modern
Hindu style of northern India.
In South Kanara, especially at Mudbidare (Mudbidri), there are also Jain
temples and tombs with double and triple sloping roofs that resemble the
native temples of Nepal, with which, however, they had no connexion. The
whole style is closely in imitation of wooden originals, the forms of
which have been derived from the local thatched dwellings of the
district. The interiors of the Kanara temples are often very rich in
carving, the massive pillars being carved like ivory or the precious
metals. Associated with these and other temples are elegant, monolithic
pillars placed on square bases, the shafts richly carved and the
capitals wide-spreading, some of them supporting, on four very small
colonnettes, a square roof elaborately modelled. These _stambhas_ or
pillars are the representatives of the early Buddhist _lats_ or columns
raised at their temples, and bear emblems distinctive of the sects to
which they respectively belong.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Kailas at Ellora.]
The southern portion of the peninsula is peopled by a race known as
Dravidians, and to the style of architecture practised over most of this
area we may conveniently apply the name of the race. This Dravidian
architecture was essentially different from that of other regions of
India and is of one type. One of the best-known groups of monuments in
this style is that of the "Seven Pagodas" or the Mamallapuram raths, on
the seashore, south from Madras. These _raths_ are each hewn out of a
block of granite, and are rather models of temples than such. They are
the earliest forms of Dravidian architecture and belong to the 7th
century. To the same age belongs the temple of Kailasanath at
Conjeeveram, and to the following century some of the temples in the
south of the Bombay Presidency, and the famous monolithic temple of the
Kailas at Ellora near Aurangabad.
Buildings in the Dravidian style are very numerous in proportion to the
extent of the area in which they are found. The temples generally
consist of a square base, ornamented externally by thin tall pilasters,
and containing the cell in which the image is kept. In front of this may
be added a _mantapam_ or hall, or even two such. Over the shrine rises
the spire, of pyramidal form, but always divided into storeys and
crowned by a small dome, either circular or polygonal in shape. The
cornices are of double curvature, whilst in other Indian styles they are
mostly straight with a downward slope. Another feature of these temples,
especially those of later date, is the _gopurams_ or great gateways,
placed at the entrances to the surrounding courts, and often on all four
sides. In general design they are like the spires over the shrines, but
about twice as wide as deep, and very frequently far more imposing than
the temples themselves.
[Illustration: Reproduced, by permission of Mr John Murray, from Dr
Burgess's _The Cave Temples of India_.