Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c16.3

c16.3

From Mathura the Mahayana system of Buddhism was carried further into the Gangetic plain, where both the creed and the building art which served it, experienced a late but exuberant flowering in the famous monasteries, universities, and sancturaries of the Buddhist Holy Land. These numerous and vast aggregations of buildings which grew up on the sites sanctified by the Buddha, are now in most instances mounds of ruins, but investigations have shown that they were almost entirely constructed of brick. The skilled handling of much of this brickwork denotes that it was a method of building which had been in practice for a very long period, of which, there have already been notable examples. Its great antiquity has been proved by the advanced stage building in brick had attained as early as 3000 B. C. in the cities of the Indus civilization. Considerably later, although perhaps not so carefully prepared as the houses of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, were the stupas of Asoka, but they were compact serviceable structures built with large and strongly made bricks. Following this, the brick foundations of a Vishnu shrine at Besnagar in Bhopal of the second century B C., prove by the nature of the materials employed, and the manner of their laying, that the high quality of this method of construction was being maintained. From these various sources it seems fairly clear that an important phase of brick building was partly conterminous with and succeeded the period of wooden construction described in Chapter II. Moreover it has been found that buildings of this character were produced in different parts of the country, but more particularly in the north, culminating in a great development of brick architecture, which prevailed throughout most of the first millennium. It is only logical therefore that in any classification of the art of building in India the position of the brick phase, while following that of wood, should precede that of dressed stone