[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Architecture and art](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art) › [Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods)](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1942) › c19.31 # Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c19.31 Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c19.31 - **Language:** English ### [c19.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1942.c19.31) Although such a conversion may have had only a moderate effect on the inside of this temple, it shows itself with marked emphasis in the treatment of the exterior. This exterior is prefaced by a fairly large formal courtyard surrounded by a pillared arcade, that on the two sides providing the verandahs to apartments in their rear. At the far end rises the facade of the temple itself, and it is here that the most expressive innovation is discernible. Hitherto the great sun-window had been an important constituent attribute of the Buddhist chaitya hall exterior from time immemorial the horse-shoe arch over the entrance meaning something more than an architectural motif, it was an emblem of deep traditional significance In the facade of the Visvakarma, it is true, some recollection of this experience still lingers, but the result is reduced and transformed until it becomes meaningless. As a whole the scheme of the frontage is resolved into two parts by a broad entablature carried horizontally across the centre, the upper surface of which acted as a minstrels' gallery similar to many of the previous examples. Nor are the arrangements of the lower portion of the facade at all exceptional, as it consists mainly of a range of pillars comprising the portico, not unlike those of the latest chaitya hall (No. 26) at Ajanta But it is in the space above the entablature, where the sun-window should be placed that the most noticeable alteration has been effected. Here, the chaitya arch has been compressed until it forms a relatively small circular opening, below which is a transverse foliation, converting the whole into a kind of trefoil. Across the lower part of the triple formation thus produced an architrave has been carried on two pillars, a treatment so obviously a copy of wooden construction, that it suggests a reversion to the timber method. On this facade however there are two features of more than usual expressiveness. These are the two canopies over the niches at the extreme sides of the composition, each of different design. In them we seem to detect the two forms of shrine, which, derived from Vedic originals persisted eventually to become, as will be shown later, the basis of the two styles of Hindu temple architecture, the Indo-Aryan, and the Dravidian The one on the right, as proved by the ribbed melon shape of the \*amala sila\* or sacred stone, is the Indo-Aryan, while on the left is the canopy which afterwards became the characteristic feature of the Dravidian style. In the design of this facade may be observed an attempt at originality, which failed because it lacked inspiration. The Buddhist rock-cut architecture closes on this note, the sun-window of its chaitya halls was, in the earlier examples a noble symbol, in the somewhat meaningless form it assumes in the Visvakarma, the last of its kind, it becomes a portent. (Plate XLII, Fig 2) - [Previous: c19.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1942.c19.30) - [Next: c19.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1942.c19.32) - [Up: c19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1942.c19) ## Linked texts (1) - [Viswakarma Cave](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.site.viswakarma-cave) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1942.c19.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.brown-1942.c19.31) · Pramāṇa