Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c38.24

c38.24

As with the temples of old Bengal so with the secular architecture, the style of this is also mainly speculative. But a large rectangular space on the site of the ancient Hindu capital is still called Ballalbari, no doubt referring to the palace of Ballal Sena, the last but one of his line, and who reigned in the twelfth century. *In situ* nothing remains, but in the mosques there are scores of huge black basalt piers and pillars, certainly not wrought for their present purpose, and hardly likely to be part of any temple-scheme. The inference, therefore, is that they are spoils from Ballal's grand palace and fortress, removed bodily from the columned halls, and accordingly representative of the temporal architecture of that ruler's time. Whatever their original function was, these pillars are remarkable productions, not monolithic, as were nearly all the pillars of this period, but built up of stone masonry in the most expert manner. Some of the shafts are round, but the majority are executed on a square or octagonal basis, strong, solid constructions averaging nine feet in height and three feet in width, such unusually thickset proportions being evidently so devised in order to support a heavy load, presumably a building in several stories. The style of the capitals is in keeping with the shafts, which are also massive but simple and severe in their design consisting of plain mouldings and chamfers with brackets of leaf scrolls. If the remainder of the architecture of which these pillars formed a part was of the same substantial and dignified character, then the building art of the Hindu kings of Bengal must have been of a standard equal to that of any other part of India Except in the rockcut temples there are no other pillars with such strength and stability combined with a stolid purposeful grace, as the black basalt piers from Lakhnauti; those who produced them built them to last, little thinking that in a few short years an unexpected force would sweep through the land, to destroy and afterwards readjust them under entirely different conditions.