Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c41.69

c41.69

Such a forceful style as that which flourished with so much vigour in southern India naturally influenced the building productions of the country even after the Chola invaders had been driven out of the island, and the Sinhalese sovereignty restored by Vijayabahu (1070-1114) towards the end of the eleventh century. One aspect of this may be seen in the Thuparama temple at Polonnaruwa of the twelfth century, built by the greatest of all the kings of this line, Parakrama Bahu I, and to whom much of the architectural glory of the capital was due In the main obviously of Dravidian extraction inspired no doubt by the style of those Siva temples of the Cholas which preceded it, yet it differs from its archtypes in one important constructional particular, it is not built of stone, but of the Sinhalese masons' favourite material, brick Apart however from the changes brought about by this difference of technique, the Thuparama is obviously a provincialized conception, an attempt to reproduce a classical type of building without the finished knowledge and experience necessary for such an effort. Of considerable size but with much of its substance taken up by the abnormal thickness of its walls, although hardly decadent, it shows how the robust ideals of the Pallavas, developed more fully by the Cholas, could in less practised hands result in this somewhat uninspiring composition. In its mass there is a certain dignity and a sense of proportion, with an imposing tower-like structure surmounting the whole, but the surface treatment is inclined to be crude and unconvincing The Thuparama is significant because it marks a stage in the course of the building art of Ceylon, not exactly a transition but the finale of an architectural intrusion which both directly and indirectly affected to a degree the arts of the island generally