Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c39.13

c39.13

The style of the architecture may be first examined. In its design the Kashmir temple is a conception which may be best described as of a classical order, one may go so far as to say that it recalls distant memories of the productions of the Graeco-Roman schools. Such a generalization is emphasised by the peripteral treatment of the composition, with its pillared porticos and peristylar arcades, thus by association of ideas bringing to mind the colonnades and columned perspective of the Parthenon, and other Hellenic buildings. The source of some of this classical character is fairly obvious, as it was most certainly derived from contact with the monastic buildings of Gandhara, for in a manner the Kashmir style was a continuation of that Graeco-Buddhist movement, which as already shown, penetrated into Kashmir in the early centuries of the first millennium. In addition to this attribution, however, there are distinct evidences of influences from a more distant origin, as is shown by the particular kind of capital, or order, employed almost exclusively in the temple architecture of the country.