Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c15.3

c15.3

BUDDHISM, and the art that served it, developed in Southern India in much the same manner as in the rest of the country, but there were certain variations in its form of architectural expression, due mainly to the difference in environment. The religion was communicated to the people of the south by Asoka's personal zeal, as several of his rock edicts testify, but the movement seems to have confined itself mainly to a relatively limited area on the eastern seaboard, towards the lower reaches of the Kistna and the Godavari rivers. Here, on several sites are the remains of extensive Buddhist sanctuaries, some rock-cut, others structural, while a few are a combination of the two modes, but nearly all bear evidences of an early foundation. It is doubtful however whether any of the work now visible is of the Mauryan period, and the real activity most probably began after the break-up of the dynasty, and with the rise of the Andhran supremacy in the south about 200 B.C. The power of the latter was centered in this part of their dominions, as the first Andhran capital, Crikakulam (probably the present Sreewacolum), and also the later capital, Dhanyakataka (Dharamikota or Amaravati), were both on the banks of the Kistna, so that the religion flourished where the population, wealth, and patronage, were greatest. Except in this region, and a short distance along the sea coast to the north of it, Buddhism appears to have made no lasting impression in the south of the peninsula as a whole, where Brahmanism has, from time immemorial, been the prevailing belief.