Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c26.2

c26.2

BEGINNING in the middle of the fourteenth century, a change came over the spirit as well as the substance of architecture in Southern India, when, after the somewhat temperate productions of the Pandyas, the country gradually became enriched with buildings in a style showing that the people had been aroused to a life of greater fulness, and one which moved them to express with marked freedom and fluency their aesthetic aspirations. The power which gave impetus and direction to such a movement was the forceful dynasty which established the Vijayanagar empire and dominated the Dravida country for over two centuries, from 1350 to 1565. This Hindu empire came into being in response to a vital need, that of preventing the all-conquering Mahommedans, who had already overrun the rest of India, from crossing the dividing line of the Kistna river, and thus completing the subjugation of the country by bringing the final portion, that of the extreme south, under their rule. Something of the sacred importance of their trust, that of preserving intact the last remaining independent Hindu territory, may have stimulated and sustained them, and enabled them to build up a dominion of exceptional stability and strength. The capital of this great empire, extending from the Kistna to Cape Comorin, was the palatial city of Vijayanagar, for a time one of the foremost cities in Asia, which, occupying a strong strategic position on the banks of the Tungabadri river, stood like a bulwark against the ever-present menace from the north. That it was a period when princely encouragement was given to the arts is proved by the architectural remains in this now deserted city, which, although grievously ruined still contains much that is wonderfully rich and beautiful. Its religious buildings, and those in other parts of Vijayanagar territory, show that no longer was it the practice to produce large unified compositions as in the Chola period, but on the other hand to devise groups of structures of moderate proportions, distinguished however by the exquisite character of the architecture and their sumptuous plastic embellishment. Indian architecture, at all times remarkable for the profuseness of its applied decoration, at this stage of its development reached "the extreme limit of florid magnificence". It is a record in stone of a range of ideals, sensations, emotions, prodigalities, abnormalities, of forms and formlessness, and even eccentricities, that only a superimaginative mind could conceive, and only an inspired artist could reproduce. The sole parallel, but a relatively remote one, is the Baroque movement in Europe, as it is expressive in a degree of the same political and social conditions And just as the Baroque was the final issue of the Renaissance, so the almost contemporary movement in Southern India represents the supremely passionate flowering of the Dravidian style.