Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c18.19

c18.19

A temple having the appearance of being one of the last to be built at Aihole, and which is proved by an inscription recording its erection in A. D. 634, is the Jain temple of Meguti. In more than one particular it indicates that the building art by this time had made some progress. There is an improvement in the quality of the masonry, as smaller blocks of stone have been used, and other advances in technique are noticeable. More delicacy is shown in the treatment of the ornamentation, as seen in the design of the bracket capitals of the exterior pilasters in comparison with the coarse scrolls of the earlier buildings. Various refinements of a like nature denote increased experience in craftsmanship, but on the other hand there are few signs of any marked advance in the planning and general arrangements. This temple still retains the square pillared hall enclosing a central shrine which, together with other features, are evidences that the builders continued to be preoccupied with the mote-hall tradition, beyond which they had made little progress, so that no suitable temple scheme had yet been evolved. Portions of the building have been left unfinished, and the incomplete state of the carving serves to prove that it was the practice to chisel the plastic decoration on the structure after it was built, instead of preparing it beforehand in the quarry. This method may have been borrowed from the rock-cut technique, and much of the sculpture on the Aihole buildings, as well as the shaping of the masonry itself, savours of the natural rock treatment. As there are two minor examples of excavated temples, one Brahmanical and the other Jain,¹ in the immediate vicinity, such influence is not unlikely. That there was a guild of craftsman, highly skilled in rock-architecture, is manifested by a remarkable series of excavated temples at Badami, situated only fifteen miles away, and now to be described.