Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c9: Chapter II: Building During the Role of the Early Mauryan Dynasty (c. 400 B.C.): Wooden Origins
Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c9
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Chapter II: Building During the Role of the Early Mauryan Dynasty (c. 400 B.C.): Wooden Origins
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BUILDING DURING THE ROLE OF THE EARLY MAURYAN DYNASTY (c. 400 B.C.)
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A STRONG firm government administered over a large territory usually implies an advance in human endeavour, and with the rise of the Mauryan dynasty towards the end of the fifth century B.C. which established for the first time a single paramount power in northern India, marked cultural progress was made. Among other achievements the art of building, stimulated by royal patronage, took a notable step forward, as Megasthenes' account¹ of the Mauryan capital of Pataliputra (near Patna) plainly shows. This Greek ambassador who resided at the court of the emperor Chandragupta about 300 B.C., presents us with a striking picture of the great Indian ruler's stronghold. Occupying a narrow parallelogram about nine miles long and a mile and a half broad, it ranged along the banks of the Ganges like an immense castellated breakwater, surrounded by a stupendous timber palisade, with loopholes for archers and protected externally by a wide and deep moat. At intervals were bastions with towers, over five hundred in number, and it was entered by as many as sixty-four gates. Within the walls was the royal palace, evidently a much more spacious and elaborate edifice than that erected by any previous ruler in the country. The main portion of this imperial residence consisted of a series of hypostyle halls containing pillars of wood each of which "was clasped around with vines embossed in gold and ornamented with designs of birds and foliage in gold and silver, thus excelling in magnificence the famous royal plaisances of Susa and Echatana." Apart from the picture of barbaric splendor that such a description conveys, in this city with its unending wooden walls and beetling bastions, and in the centre the palace formed of golden pillared halls, there are indications that India as represented by the Mauryan dynasty was beginning to look even at this early date to the more progressive civilizations beyond its western boundaries for architectural inspiration. For the hypostyle hall had long been a feature of the palaces of the Persians, and Polybius (x. 24) remarks that the columns at the courts of Echatana were of cedar and cypress, "all covered with silver plate," a form of structure and decorative treatment not unlike that which Chandragupta appears to have reproduced in his palatial residence at Pataliputra.
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¹ *Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian*, by J. W. M'Crindle, 1877.
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Of the fortifications surrounding this great capital city of the Mauryan empire nothing has survived except fragments of the wooden ramparts unearthed at Bulandi Bagh, near Patna, the beams of which by their size prove that the Greek envoy's account of its dimensions was by no means exaggerated. An idea may be gained from the foundations which consisted of timbers laid in parallel lines like railway sleepers each twelve to thirteen feet long, corresponding to the thickness of the stockade at its base. To these horizontal beams upright posts were tenoned, some of them nine feet high, but it is not possible from such scanty remains to estimate its total height. That this technical method of timbering was common to other races, widely separated and acting independently, is shown by the same principle being utilized by the Romans, as a scene on Trajan's Column depicts, while Caesar's description in his "Commentaries" of the wooden walls of the Celts might apply to those at Pataliputra. "They employ pieces of wood perfectly straight, lay them on the ground in a direction parallel to each other at a distance apart of two feet," etc. An upper portion of the Mauryan stockade preserved in the Indian Museum, Calcutta comprises immense teak-wood posts connected by transverse bars, suggesting that it was an enlarged adaptation of the Vedic village railing previously described.
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Megasthenes' too brief account of the civic architecture of his time is amplified by material derived from another and entirely different source, namely the pictures of various historic towns carved in bas-relief on the Buddhist monuments, which although produced a little later are no doubt substantially representative of the building art at this period. On the Sanchi gateways as backgrounds to battles and processions, there may be seen portions of such famous cities as Kapilavastu the place of the Buddha's birth, Kusinagara under the walls of which was waged the "War of the Relics," Uruvilva the scene of the serpent miracle, and Rajgriha, the old Magadhan capital. All these towns appear to be of one established type, strongly fortified and surrounded by high walls having battlements with the merlons corbel-stepped after the manner of those in the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Outside is a moat in which the sculptor with an artist's eye has floated lotus and other aquatic plants, while the whole is enclosed within the usual railing palisade. Specially noticeable are the city gates all of which are designed in much the same style, that of the main entrance to Kusinagara carved on the south torana at Sanchi being so carefully delineated and in such detail that it is possible to reproduce it in perspective, together with its surroundings, as shown in the Frontispiece. The bas-relief shows a tall entrance pylon, with the gateway defended by a square bastion projecting on each side, the whole of a very serviceable nature yet not devoid of architectural effect. Near the gateway is what seems to be a formidable angle-tower, while overhanging the walls are pillared balconies, loggias, railed balustrades and "magic casements" which give an excellent idea of the romantic character of the Buddhist sacred cities. No reference to these pictures in stone at Sanchi would be complete without a remark on the figure subjects to which the architecture forms only an artistic setting. For instance the royal procession issuing from the gates at Kusinagara with the emperor Bimbisara at its head might have been the source of inspiration for Blake's lines in the "Song of Liberty" "The jealous King, his grey-brow'd councillors, thund'rous warriors, curl'd veterans, among helms, and shields, and chariots, horses, elephants, banners, castles, slings, and rocks"
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Apart from the fortifications and city of Pataliputra there has also survived one concrete record of the wooden construction of the palace, of such a high standard of workmanship that it is a definite proof of the Mauryan artificers' accumulated experience in working in timber. This consists of a number of massive teakwood platforms each thirty feet in length, found buried deep in the silt and apparently introduced as a kind of raft to support the foundations of the facade or propylaeum of the palace. Composed of beams jointed together "with a precision and reasoned care that could not possibly be excelled," they illustrate "the absolute perfection of such work and those who executed them would find little indeed to learn in the field of their own art, could they return to earth to-day."¹
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¹ *Archaeological Survey of India*, 1912-13, p. 76.
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Thus high appraisement of the Mauryan artizan's skill as a worker in wood is confirmed by other evidence of a unique character. Owing to the Indian craftsman's traditional genius for imitation every detail of this early form of timber construction has been most faithfully reproduced in the numerous and very complete examples of rock architecture which followed, so that although the wooden originals have perished their exact facsimiles remain preserved in the living rock. In no other country has the carpenters and joiners craft as practised over two thousand years ago been so fully and accurately recorded. With the material thus provided it is quite possible to extract in theory this timber-work from the rock-cut halls of the Buddhists and conjecturally reconstruct it in its original form. The drawing on Plate III illustrates this procedure as it represents a transcription in wood of an excavated example at Kondane of the first century B C., now buried in the forest of the Western Ghats. This early Buddhist production cut out of the cliff face consisted of a *chaitya* hall or temple and its attached monasteries, so that two characteristic types of structure are depicted, one arched over by means of a barrel-vault roof and the other having a flat roof.
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The timber used by the early Indian carpenters and builders was teak, carefully trimmed into the required shape with an adze. Not a large variety of joints were employed, most of them being of a simple but effective order and the workmen knew their application thoroughly; where these required to be pinned, bamboo pegs were inserted. The foundations were prepared by means of beams laid in the manner already described in the construction of the city walls and to these the uprights, such as the pillars, were tenoned. Most interesting is the construction of the vaulted roof, as it is worked out on somewhat the same principle as the arch braced timber roof of the Gothic builders of Europe evolved many centuries later. In the Indian method the structural membering of the vault was supplemented by a series of curved wooden ribs or groins placed in close order, the whole system anticipating a solution of the problem of arching a space in a most satisfactory and at the same time artistic manner. The flat roofed edifices were planned and executed in an equally workmanlike fashion, with pillars supporting the wooden girders, above which were beams and joists placed and jointed in correct position to carry the requisite weight.
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Such was the structural system employed in the framework of these timber buildings, but how this was filled in and finished is purely conjectural. In all probability a filling of plaster (*chunam*) was added and painted white as there are frequent allusions in the ancient Pali texts to great edifices "gleaming white like a cloud", an effect evidently considered the height of achievement. As to the decorative treatment of this wooden architecture, the facades of both the vaulted hall and its attached monastery show that the early carpenter was able to manipulate his material so as to produce the most artistic results, although each effort at embelishment had its practical use. The great arched window admitted light into the vaulted hall through its tracery, while the balcony in front was a minstrels' gallery; the projecting casements on each side were priests' chambers, and below on the left was a room for the sacristan Similar decorative but purposeful structures from the frontage of the adjoining building, covered balconies being prominent features as they are in the architecture of the country at the present time. Some of these features are amplified in Plate IV, as for example the system of lighting the smaller rooms by means of bamboo lattices, and in certain instances the entire balcony was a mesh of plaited bamboo strips held together on a framework of wood. This device was the precursor by many centuries of the *pinjra* or "cage-work" so common in the later buildings of Upper India as well as the *meshrebiya* of Egypt and other Islamic countries These and many other technical and artistic expedients of this early phase of timber construction may be seen literally petrified and thus imperishably preserved in the later rock architecture of the Buddhist period.
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REFERENCES
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Jackson, V. H, *Notes on Old Rajgriha*, Arch. Survey of India, 1913-14 M'Crindle, J. W., *Ancient India as described in Classical Literature*, Westminster, 1901. M'Crindle, J. W, *Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian*, London, 1877. Smith, V. A, *The Early History of India from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest*, 3rd Edn Oxford, 1914. Spooner, D. B., *Excavations at Pataliputra*, Arch. Survey of India, 1912-13, pp. 53ff. Waddell, L A, *Report on the Excavations at Pataliputra*, Cal. 1903
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Fig 3
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Fig 1
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Fig 2
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Fig 5
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Fig 4
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Fig 1 Sarnath, Benares Capital (restored) of monolithic column, Asokan, c B C 250
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Fig 2 Baalbek, Syria Lion-headed spout, Roman, 2nd Century A D
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Fig 3 Budh Gaya, Bihar Carved stone border from throne, Asokan c B C 250
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Fig. 4. Rampurva, Bihar Border from monolithic column, Asokan, c B C 250
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Fig. 5 Sanchi, Bhopal; Capitals from Northern Gateway, c 25 B C
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[Figure: TODA HUT
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INTERIORS FROM ROCK CUT EXAMPLES
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① & 2 SUDAMA ③ SITA MARHI ④ KONDIVTE ⑤ SON BHANDAR ⑥ LOMAS RISHI } BARABAR HILLS
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⑦ GUNTUPALLE MADRAS
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⑧ PITALKHORA]