Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c26.4

c26.4

Much of the intricacy and rich beauty of the Vijayanagar type of temple was produced by the number and prominence of its pillars and piers, and the manner in which they were sculptured into the most complicated compositions, strange and manifold, so that each becomes a figurative drama in stone. Pavilions containing groups of columns form the principal part of the architectural scheme, and it is by the artistically ingenious character of many of these supports that the buildings of this style may be identified. A very striking type of pillar design and also the most frequent is that in which the shaft becomes merely a central core for the attachment of an involved group of statuary, often of heroic size and chiselled entirely in the round, having as its most conspicuous element a furiously rearing horse, rampant hippogryph or upraised animal of a supernatural kind. Another type, sometimes combined and also alternating with the foregoing, shows encircling the central column a cluster of miniature pillars, slender, mystical, and dreamy, like Gothic nook-shafts Of the less complicated form of column there is one which is often found in conjunction with others, where the shaft is composed of a series of small-scale shrines copied from original full size structures and arranged in zones one above the other on the same principle of the repeating "cells" on the sikhara and gopuram. Lastly there is a fairly common type which appears throughout the later phases of the Dravidian style consisting of a cubical motif alternating with wide bands and chamfered, so that portions of the shaft are eight or sixteen sided. Almost all these different kinds of pillars have ornamental brackets forming part of their capitals, as found in every stage of the Dravidian order, and usually below the bracket is a pendant or *bodegai*, the changes in the design of which throughout the style have already been traced. (Plate LXV). In response to the demand for more richness of detail during the Vijayanagar regime this pendant was elaborated into a volute terminating in an inverted lotus bud, its different shapes thus providing a minor but reliable index to the period.