Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c30.7

c30.7

There are several groups of buildings which exemplify this movement, most of them unfortunately fragmentary owing to subsequent vicissitudes One of these displaying structural records of great beauty is in the Saugor district of Central India. Here at Eran are architectural remains extending over a period of some six centuries, from the fifth to the eleventh, beginning with the monolithic pillar of Buddhagupta of the fifth century and including a series of shrines dedicated to Varaha, Narasimha, and Vishnu, all of the later Gupta era. Ten miles away is Pathari where the seventh century is represented by a monolithic column, and here also is the temple of Kotheswara which may be of the ninth century. At Gyraspur, further south, in the ruins known as the *Ath-Kambha* (eight pillars), and the *Char-Kambha* (four pillars) are portions of the columned halls of two temples of the ninth and tenth centuries, while the building called the Bajramath, and the temple of Mala De are of the early tenth century. (Plate CII). Finally, at Udayaspur, there is the temple of Udayaswara dating from the middle of the eleventh century, and showing by its style an affinity to the Chandela group at Khajuraho. (Chapter XXII). In the design of each of these structures, whether ruined or entire, there is some feature, or group of features, entirely expressive of the period each represents, such as the typical Gupta order of the capital at Eran, the carved pillars in the Mala De temple with their foliated motifs characteristic of the post-Gupta style in its richest and ripest mood, the faceted shafts of the *Ath-Kambha* with patterns as fine as old Chinese ivory carving, and the logical planning of the red sandstone temple of Udayaswara. All the records of this series however are distributed over a relatively wide area, for a more compact group of structures illustrating the movement, the temples at Osia in Rajputana may be selected.