Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c28.5

c28.5

For reasons already stated the temples of Orissa provide the most logical beginning for a study of the Indo-Aryan style. The main group is concentrated in the town of Bhubaneswar where there are over thirty examples. But a few miles from this temple-town are two of the largest and most important buildings in this locality, the temple of Jagannath at Puri, and the remains of the Temple of the Sun at Konarak. Apart however from the central development, a considerable distance along the coast towards the south, as far away as Ganjam within the Madras State, there is a small group in this style at Mukhalingam, which has no little significance. In the other direction from Bhubaneswar, towards the north, an offshoot of the movement is to be found in a series of ruined shrines in the State of Mayurbhanj between Orissa and Bengal, while still further north on the southern borders of Bengal and Bihar there are a few structures of somewhat the same general character. It will be seen therefore that along a wide belt of country extending for some four hundred miles in a north-easterly direction, parallel to the coastline of the Bay of Bengal, this type of temple is fairly common. The earliest of these may date from the eighth century A.D.; and the largest and latest of all, that of Konarak was erected in the middle of the thirteenth century, so that for nearly five hundred years during the early mediaeval period this part of the country was the scene of sustained architectural activity. So much so, that it recalls a similar and almost contemporary phase of cathedral building in Europe, when the builders, the rulers, the priests and the people were overpowered by their faith which found expression in the production of religious monuments. And in the same manner in Orissa so many fine examples persisting over such a period of time, make it possible to trace the gradual evolution of this particular movement without difficulty, an opportunity from various causes not presented in anything like the same continuity elsewhere.