Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c34.4

c34.4

The temples which appear to have an affinity to those of Kashmir, were produced in Kathiawar by an immigrant tribe known as Mers,¹ during the last half of the first millennium, and therefore contemporary with the Kashmir examples. Both the Mer and Kashmir temples are square in plan, with a central sanctuary, but the principal parallelism is in the formation of the roofs. In each type these are pyramidal in shape, and rise up into two tiers, the upper overhanging the lower, rather in the manner of the stories of a Chinese pagoda. Added to this in the Mer design, although the temples are Brahmanical, there are Buddhist chaitya arches in the form of dormer-windows projecting from the sloping portion, but these, in the Kashmir structure, are in the shape of pediments and trefoil arches. It is not therefore so much a resemblance in the actual elements making up these two types of temple formation that is remarkable, but it is in the principles underlying their construction that there is observable a distinct similarity of motive. (Plate CXVIII, Fig. 7 and 8). In view of their wide geographical separation, any direct contact between the two countries is improbable, what is more likely is that some mutual pattern of thought-mould evolved, which accounts for this approximation of forms, rather than any interchange of technical experience.