Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c16.2

c16.2

THE opening centuries of the Christian era indicate that practically the whole of the architecture being produced in India was the outcome of the Buddhist faith. It will also be seen that the building art thus developed was being evolved, more or less independently, in three different parts of the country in the west, south and north. The particular form that the religion assumed in each region is plainly shown by the character and appearance of its monuments In the west, as exemplified by the rock-cut halls in the Western Ghats which, upto this time were entirely the result of the Hinayana system, this primitive phase of Buddhism was approaching the end of its course, the arid and almost sterile treatment of the Kanheri chaitya hall (c. A. D. 180) marking its decline. In the south, where the style reached its zenith in the Amaravati stupa (c. A.D 250), the life of the creed was prolonged by an infusion of the more advance Mahayana thought, but here too it was soon to be overwhelmed by the surrounding Hinduism. Only in the north, in spite of political vicissitudes, did it maintain its hold, its vitality being due very largely to its Mahayana character, as shown by the Gandhara monasteries with their marked Hellenistic attribution. This theistic form of the belief, with its classical iconography, had by now been conveyed across the Punjab to the ancient and sacred city of Mathura (Muttra), which became a stronghold of this later system of Buddhism for several centuries The Mathura of those days has however almost entirely perished, as it lay directly in the path of the invading Muhammadans, but Mahmud's own account of its architectural mangificence before he destroyed it, that it contained "more than a thousand structures, the greater number in marble" speaks for itself. What records have survived show that here two traditions met, the Hellenistic current from Gandhara passing into the deep pool of indigenous art, as represented by the remains of Barhut and Sanchi. It was the synthesis of these two very different but equally potent movements, as expressed in the monuments of Mathura, that enabled Indian art to maintain its continuity in the more northern regions throughout this period.