Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c43.3

c43.3

THE previous chapters of this work have confined themselves entirely to the architectural productions contained within the strict geographical limits of the peninsula of India itself. But it has been truly observed that "to know Indian art in India alone, is to know but half its story."¹ For with the impulse mainly provided by the indigenous religions of the Indian people, Hinduism and Buddhism, the civilization and culture of India, together with the arts that these inspired, were carried eastwards into several of the great countries of Asia, there to flourish in some respects, with a more sustained vigour, than in the country of their origin. In the field of architecture, specifically, this movement led to the creation of large groups of buildings of marked significance, several of which, basically in the Indian tradition, are of such remarkable character and stupendous proportions as to equal any in the Western world This eastern development of the religious, social and even material life of India spread over a large region in the south-central portions of the continent corresponding to what are now the countries of Siam, French Indo-China, Java and Bali, Malaya and Sumatra, all of which for the present purpose have been grouped under the designation of "Greater India."