Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c7.s1: Architecture
Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c7.s1
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Architecture
c7.s1.1
Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were planned fortified cities. The citadel consisted of a high rampart wall (*Prākāra*) on broad foundation of mud-work 45 ft. wide (*Vapra*), city-gates (*Dvāra*) and a moat (*Parikhā*) for which the Indus and the Ravi sufficed. The main city was enclosed inside these defences, giving a complete picture of what in the Vedic texts and later was known as Pur, a fortified city. The high acropolis is a parallelogram, 400-500 yards north-south by 200 300 yards east-west, with a perimeter of about 3 miles. The city-wall tapering upwards had bastions or towers at intervals (*Aṭṭālaka*) and was itself propped by a revetment of baked bricks 4 ft. wide on the outside (*Iṣṭakā-Prākāra*).
c7.s1.2
The town inside was divided by broad streets regularly running at right angles both east-west and north-south dividing the city into blocks. The fixity of plan as laid down by the first builders continued throughout the history of Mohenjo-daro showing that the municipal authority enforcing the building laws extracted willing obedience from the people almost in a religious spirit. There was, however, some deviation in the later stages of the city building.
c7.s1.3
The main street at Mohenjo-daro (*Mahāpatha*) cleared for half a mile is 33 ft. wide, allowing several rows of wheeled carraiges to pass up and down. The main road intersected by some similar ones and by less wider streets from 12 to 9 ft. wide divided the whole city into blocks where smaller lanes and narrow alleys upto 4 ft. are also seen. There was no system of paving the streets with bricks excpting for the drain in the centre of the street.
c7.s1.4
The houses were arranged in rows mostly sited in the lanes, generally of 27 ft. x 29 ft. or double the size. They were provided with several rooms, a kitchen and a bath-room round a courtyard and were built in two storeys. The height of the brick-built walls as preserved in the streets is about 18 ft. and in the lanes 25 ft. The houses in the blocks are compact, but sometimes separated by narrow spaces of only 1 ft. The entrance was generally placed in the lane for privacy and safety. The principles of foundation, vertical walls in parallel courses, provision of roof probably on wooden beams and rafters, grille windows, niches and plastering were known. The art of masonary was plain and severe without much decoration. Only a few examples of alabaster and pottery grilles for windows have survived. An average door measured 3 ft. 4 inches in width and double in height and was closed by shutters, now perished. Larger doors upto 7 ft. 10 in. also exist. The use of stone for building was practically absent. Even brick pillars were not much in use. Surviving columns are either square or rectangular and no round column has been found.
c7.s1.5
The floors in the rooms were without pavement, being only of beaten earth. The bath-rooms on the other hand received more careful attention as shown in the use of very finely joined masonary made impervious by the technique of using rubbed bricks. Inside the thick walls were pottery pipes for the flow of spill water from the bath-rooms of the upper storey, connected with the street-side drain of the ground-floor. This nice arrangement to ensure maximum cleanliness is a singular feature of Harappan culture.
c7.s1.6
Every good house had its well with plentiful supply of sweet water and brick-lined with wedged bricks (सुजापट्टी की ईंटें) made water tight and furnished with a high coping above the mouth of the well. The usual size is 3 ft. across but smaller ones of 2 ft. and larger of 7 ft. are also found.
c7.s1.7
The drainage system of the houses and the town gives proof of unusually thoughtful planning. Each street and lane had a good brick-paved channel made of bricks on two sides finely joined with mud-mortar, lime or gypsum, bigger drains (18" wide) generally covered with loose stones and smaller ones with bricks. Tributary drains from each house connected with the street drain. The long drain was provided with man-holes at intervals with wooden covers and the whole system emptied itself in brick culverts (2½ ft. wide 4 or 5 ft. high) to carry away collected rain water. It appears that the cleanliness of the body had become a religious cult with the people. We are reminded of a reference in the Chhāndogya Upanishad mentioning the philosophy of life held by the Asuras believing that the physical body is Ātmā (Self), which should be embellished and provided with provisions, clothes and ornaments after death (असुराणां ह्येपनिषत् प्रेतस्य शरीरं भिक्षया वसनेना-लंकारैणति संस्कृत्वन्ति, Chh. Up. 8.8.5). This fits in squarely with the remains of Harappa culture which most likely belonged to the Asura race.
c7.s1.8
Besides the citadel on the Stūpa mound at Mohenjo-daro the Great Bath, an Assembly Hall, the so-called 'College Building' having numerous rooms with a courtyard and a grand staircase (all pointing to its character as a Royal Palace), and last of all the Granary exposed in Wheeler's excavation being similar to the elaborate Granary of Harappa, are other structures of monumental nature pointing to the architectural genius of their builders. The Assembly Hall rests on twenty pillars arranged in four rows of five each, some of them 25 ft. high, and is a spacious building, 85 ft. square, seemingly of multipurpose use as a *Sabhā* and office of the city-guild similar to *Samthāgāra* of Buddhist times.
c7.s1.9
THE GREAT BATH (*Mahā-kuṇḍa*, 39 ft. x 23 ft. x 8 ft.) formed part of a big hydropathic establishment (180' x 108'). This structure almost offers a commentary on the high standard of the Indus Valley people, so far as their religious and secular life is concerned. It was reached by flights of steps on two sides and surrounded by several rows of smaller double-storeyed rooms. It was supplied with fresh water taken from a nearby well, brick-lined with gypsum mortar. Its floor and wall have been made absolutely water-tight by three parallel vertical brick-walls on the four sides, the first is plastered on the outside and plugged on the inside by one inch thick coat of bitumen. The second and the third walls were connected to it by rammed mud and made compact as a single unit. The emptying outlet in one corner connects it with a big corbelled drain. On the terrace of the bath was a spacious corridor supported on pillars and having on three sides at its back various rooms and galleries serving as cloak rooms. [Fig. 10].
c7.s1.10
GRANARY—Both at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa a granary of massive construction (150' x 75') of solid masonary divided into 27 blocks with attached platforms for loading and unloading has come to light. A timber super-structure was provided above the blocks which were arranged in a manner to ensure proper airing. The round platforms near the granary at Harappa on which wooden mortars and pestles were placed for pounding corn into flour by toiling labourers. Thus the rich population was able to maintain itself with a constant supply of wheat flour from the labours of a peasantry.
c7.s1.11
From the monuments described above, we are in a position to form an idea of the political and economic organisation established in the citedal. For example, the defended town was the *Pur* or Royal Fort, the Granary the *Koṣṭhāgāra*, the Assembly Hall the *Sabhā* or *Samthāgāra* serving as the Hall of Public Audience (*Asthāna-maṇḍapa* of later literature), and last of all the so called "College" the Royal Palace (*Prāsāda*), and the Great Bath corresponding to the *Maṅgala-Puṣkariṇī* in which the members of the consecrated aristocracy called *Rājānaḥ* took their sacramental bath as amongst the Lichchhavis of Vaiśālī. To this may be added four other components, namely, the Broad Road (*Mahāpatha*), Rampart (*Prākāra*), Rammed Foundation (*Vapra*) and Gateway (*Gopura Dvāra*) with bastions (*Aṭṭālaka*). The argument from this contingent of ten buildings and architectural parts throws up links between the proto-historic and historic cultures of India. A capital city in later times was also of the same lay-out. What remains to complete the picture was a religious shrine which perhaps lies concealed under the Buddhist Stūpa.
c7.s1.12
DOCKYARD AT LOTHAL— At Lothal (Saragwala Tila, Distt. Ahmedabad) a respectable town two miles round, divided by a broad street, into six blocks, was discoverd in 1958-59, a large dockyard roughly trapezoid on plan, its eastern and western embankments being 710' long, the northern 124' and southern 116'. The greatest extent height of the embankment was 14'. Boats could enter the harbour at high tide through an opening in the eastern embankment, the dwarf-wall near the entrance being meant to retain water even at low tide. A spill-channel existed in the southern embankment for the outlet of excess water, care being taken to provide even a sliding door fixed in two groves at the mouth of the channel. [Fig. 11]. This gives proof of the sea-borne trade carried on by the Harappans settled at Lothal. Unfortunately the dockyard and the town were submerged by a major flood.
Linked texts (1)
- Chāndogyopaniṣad — Sanskrit