Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c38.23

c38.23

In addition to the rich beauty of the design and workmanship of this doorway, it exhibits a singularly interesting expedient employed by the Hindu masons for bonding their stone construction Within the lintel, exposed by fracture, it revealed a system of channels, vents, and plug-holes, for the purposes of enabling molten metal to be poured in, and for the courses of stone to be joined in this manner. Bonding by means of metal such as bronze dowels and copper cramps, is part of the builder's equipment; but the process shown in this example, and probably freely employed in their architecture, is unusual, and appertains more to the workshop practice of the foundry than to that of the stoneyard Can it be that the influence of that forceful school of metal-casting brought to such perfection by Dhiman penetrated into the technique of the building art, so that the Pala builder was a metal-worker first and a mason afterwards? In the hard metallic manipulation of the carving, in the bronze-like texture of the basalt itself there is implied the sharp incisive touch of the chiseller and chaser of cold metal