Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c31.4

c31.4

Although many of these building undertakings were directly inspired by the Solanki rulers themselves, some of the finer efforts appear to have been due to the patronage of their ministers and governors, who, more often than not, were prominent members of the Jain faith, and who used their great wealth unstintingly, and with marked broadmindedness in erecting temples, both Jain and Hindu. Two of these exalted personages, the brothers Vastupala and Tejapala, who attained to power in the first half of thirteenth century, may, in certain respect, be referred to as the “Indian Medicis”, for as politicians, bankers, and merchant princes, they used their influence and accumulated resources in much the same manner as those celebrated Florentines, the Medicis, patronising and encouraging the arts of Gujarat, as Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent did for Italian art in the fifteenth century. Yet there seems little doubt that like many mediaeval masterpieces, the Solanki temples were not the produce of one mind, or even a group of minds, but were the spontaneous expression of the entire community, every individual, from the highest to the lowest being moved to take a personal interest in their construction, so that even those monuments which are dismembered and broken still continue to breathe the spirit of that brilliant age