Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c22.30

c22.30

With the excavated temples of the Jains at Ellora, which were probably completed towards the early part of the tenth century, the rock-architecture of India, to all intents and purposes, terminated. But before this occurred the close of the movement had been already foreshadowed. That outstanding monolithic example, the Kailasa, although representing its culmination, implied, all unconsciously the beginning of the end. When instead of the pillared halls penetrating into the interior of the hill-side their place was taken by direct copies of structural edifices, such replicas, however splendid, ceased to possess that indefinable quality which gave rock-architecture its real incentive. No longer was it an art of long sombre galleries and dim-lit cells peopled with colossal beings in a darkly splendid world, thrilling the devotee with a strange fearfulness into a state of religious awe. Brought out into the brilliant sunlight, much of the atmosphere of haunting mystery departed, and although the beauty of art and workmanship was greater than ever, as the Kailasa plainly testifies, its ancient motives and traditions were lost. Such may have been the metaphysical reason for the cessation of this architectural mode. But there was also the material explanation. By this time structural building had been developing, and there is little doubt that rock-architecture declined and eventually died out on account of the masonry system of production becoming perfected and its greater possibilities known. But for over a thousand years, corresponding approximately to the first millennium, it was a method of expression which flourished in several parts of India to produce some of the most remarkable monuments wrought by the hand of man. Whatever their architectural properties, that many of these excavated temples are outstanding works of art, significant of a people who had the vision and capacity for ideas to conceive them and the skill and audacity to create them out of the unyielding rock, cannot be denied.