Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c45.7

c45.7

It is not uncommon to find in certain styles of art a motif used so persistently that it identifies that art at once. Such is the rampant steed in the mediaeval sculpture of Southern India, the chaitya element, "kudu" in Buddhist rock architecture, and the trefoil with the angular pediment in the temples of Kashmir, to mention only a few instances. But probably in no country has this system of reiteration of a particular form been carried to such an excess as a certain flame-like form, used both architecturally as well as decoratively in the art of Indo-China, and specially in that of the Chams. Introduced, as referred to above, in the manner of an offset, or repeated in miniature in countless numbers on the towers, it is so invariably employed that the eye is wearied by its unrestricted frequency. A distant derivative of the chaitya arch, through the "kudu", it has now become a kind of "acroteria" on the shrines of the Chams. But although this motif is so universal in the design of these kalans, it does not conceal the fact that in appearance, shape, proportions, and technical treatment, these shrines bear a textural resemblance to that almost isolated example at Bhitagaon, in the United Provinces of India, a brick temple of the sixth century. Not that there is any noticeable structural likeness, for as previously stated, the building art of the Chams shows considerable evidence of being an independent phase of Hindu architecture, approximating only to the parent art of India in some of its details, implications and general trends, but at the same time an affinity is apparent.