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History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c10: Chapter I. Introduction and Classification.

History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c10

Language
English

Contents

Chapter I. Introduction and Classification.

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IT may create a feeling of disappointment in some minds when they are told that there is no stone architecture in India older than two and a half centuries before the Christian Era; but, on the other hand, it adds immensely to the clearness of what follows to be able to assert that India owes the introduction of the use of stone for architectural purposes, as he does that of Buddhism as a state religion, to the great Asoka, who reigned from about B.C. 265 to 228.

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It is not, of course, meant to insinuate that the people of India had no architecture before that date; on the contrary, it can be proved that they possessed palaces and halls of assembly, perhaps even temples, of great magnificence and splendour, long anterior to Asoka's accession; but, like the buildings of the Burmese at the present day, they were all in wood. Stone, in those days, seems to have been employed only for the foundations of buildings, or in engineering works, such as city walls and gates, or bridges or embankments; all else, as will appear from the sequel, were framed in carpentry. Much as we may now regret this, as all these buildings have consequently perished, it is not so clear, as it may at first appear, that the Indians were wrong in this, inasmuch as, in all respects, except durability, wood is a better building material than stone. It is far more easily cut and carved, larger spaces can be covered with fewer and less cumbrous points of support than is possible with stone, and colour and gilding are much more easily applied to wood than to stone. For the same outlay twice the space can be covered, and more than twice the splendour obtained by the use of the more perishable material, the one great defect being that it is ephemeral. It fails also in producing that impression of durability which is so essential to architectural effect; while, at the same time, the facility with which it can be carved and adorned tends to produce a barbaric splendour far less satisfactory than the more sober forms necessitated by the employment of the less tractable material.

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Be this as it may, it will, if I mistake not, become quite clear when we examine the earliest "rock-cut temples" that, whether from ignorance or from choice, the Indians employed wood and that only, in the construction of their ornamental buildings, before Asoka's time.¹ From this the inference seems inevitable that it was in consequence of India being brought into contact with the western world, first by Alexander's raid, and then by the establishment of the Baktrian kingdom in its immediate proximity, that led to this change. We do not yet know precisely how far the Baktrian kingdom extended towards the Indus, but we feel Greek influence on the coinage, on the sculpture, and generally on the arts of India, from an early date, and it seems as if we might be able to fix with precision not only the dates, but the forms in which the arts of the Western world exerted their influence on those of the East. Meanwhile it may be sufficient to state here that we know absolutely nothing of the temples or architecture of the various peoples or religions who occupied India before the rise of Buddhism,² and it is only by inference that we know anything of that of the Buddhists before the age of Asoka. From that time forward, however, all is clear and intelligible; we have a sufficient number of examples whose dates and forms are known to enable us to write a fairly consecutive history of the architectural style during the 1000 years Buddhism was prevalent in India, and thence to trace its various developments in the extra Indian countries to which it was carried, and where it is still practised at the present day.³

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¹ These remarks must not be taken as applying to sculpture also. It is quite true that no stone sculptures have yet been found in India of an earlier date than the age of Asoka; but, as will be seen in the sequel, the perfection the Indian artists had attained in stone sculpture when they executed the bas-reliefs at Bharaut (B.C. 200), shows a familiarity with the material that could only be attained by long practice.

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² No mention of temples, or, indeed, of buildings is, I believe, found in the Vedas, and though both are frequently alluded to, and described in the Epic Poems and the Purânas, this hardly helps us; first because, like all verbal descriptions of buildings, they are too vague to be intelligible, and secondly, because there is no proof that the passages containing these descriptions may not have been interpolated after—possibly long after—the Christian Era.

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³ I believe I was the first to ascertain these facts from a personal inspection of the monuments themselves. They were communicated to the Royal Asiatic Society in a paper I read on the 'Rock-cut Temples of India,' in 1842. Every subsequent research, and every increase of our knowledge, has tended to confirm those views to such an extent that they are not now disputed by any one acquainted with the literature of the subject.

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This being the case, it would be in vain to look for any earlier architecture of any importance in India before Asoka's time: such could be expected only in countries where stone had been in use from the very earliest times. The Aryans, who were dominant before the rise of Buddhism, wrote books and expressed their ideas in words, like their congeners all the world over, but they do not seem successfully to have cultivated the æsthetic arts, or to have sought for immortality through the splendour or durability of their buildings. That was the aspiration of the Turanian and other races, and we owe it to this circumstance that we are enabled to write with any certainty the history of their rise and fall as evidenced in their architectural productions.

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There is no *à priori* improbability that the Dravidian races of the south of India, or the indigenous races of the north, may not have erected temples or other buildings at a very early date, but if so, all that can be said is that all trace of them is lost. When we first meet the Buddhist style it is in its infancy—a wooden style painfully struggling into lithic forms—and we have no reason to suppose that other styles were then more advanced. When, however, we first meet them, some six or seven centuries afterwards, they are so complete in all their details, and so truly lithic in their forms, that they have hitherto baffled all attempts to trace them back to their original types, either in the wood or brick work, from which they may have been derived. So completely, indeed, have all the earlier examples been obliterated, that it is now doubtful whether the missing links can ever be replaced. Still, as one single example of a Hindû temple dating before the Christian Era might solve the difficulty, we ought not to despair of such being found, while the central provinces of India remain so unexplored as they are. Where, under ordinary circumstances, we ought to look for them, would be among the ruins of the ancient cities which once crowded the valley of the Ganges; but there the ruthless Moslim or the careless Hindû have thoroughly obliterated all traces of any that may ever have existed. In the remote valleys of the Himâlaya, or of Central India, there may, however, exist remains which will render the origin and progress of Hindû architecture as clear and as certain as that of the Buddhist; but till these are discovered, it is with the architecture of the Buddhist that our history naturally begins. Besides this, however, from the happy accident of the Buddhists very early adopting the mode of excavating their temples in the living rock, their remains are imperishably preserved to us, while it is only too probable that those of the Hindû, being in less durable forms, have disappeared. The former, therefore, are easily classified and dated, while the origin of the latter, for the present, seems lost in the mist of the early ages of Indian arts. Meanwhile, the knowledge that the architectural history of India commences about B.C. 250, and that all the monuments now known to us are Buddhist, or of cognate sects, for at least five or six centuries after that time, are cardinal facts that cannot be too strongly insisted upon by those who wish to clear away a great deal of what has hitherto tended to render the subject obscure and unintelligible.

Classification.

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For convenience of description it will probably be found expedient to classify the various objects of Buddhist art under the five following groups, though of course it is at times impossible to separate them entirely from one another, and sometimes two or more of them must be taken together as parts of one monument.

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1st. *Stambhas* or *Lâts*.—These pillars are common to all the styles of Indian architecture. With the Buddhists they were employed to bear inscriptions on their shafts, with emblems or animals on their capitals. With the Jains they were generally Dîpdâns, or lamp-bearing pillars, but sometimes supporting quadruple figures of a Jina; with the Vaishnavas they as generally bore statues of Garuda or Hanumân; with the Saivas they bore the trisula symbol or were Dîpdâns and flag-staffs; but, whatever their destination, they were always among the most original, and frequently the most elegant, productions of Indian art.

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2nd. *Stûpas* or *Topes*.—These, again, were primarily relic-shrines, but may be divided into two classes, according to their destination: first, Stûpas proper, or monuments containing relics of Buddha or of some Buddhist saint;¹ secondly, the stûpas or towers erected to commemorate some event or mark some sacred spot dear to the followers of the Buddha. If it were possible, these two ought to be kept separate, but no external signs have yet been discovered by which they can be distinguished from one another, and till this is so, they must be considered, architecturally at least, as one.² 3rd. *Rails.*—These must be recognised as one of the most important features of Buddhist architecture. Generally they are found surrounding Topes, but they are also represented as enclosing sacred trees, temples, pillars, and other objects. It may be objected that treating them separately is like describing the peristyle of a Greek temple apart from the cella. The Buddhist rail, however, in early ages at least, is never attached to the tope, and is used for so many other, and such various purposes, that it will certainly tend to the clearness of what follows if they are treated separately.

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¹ The Jains in very early times had stûpas and worshipped at them. Even still the *Samosaranas* in some of their temples at Satrunjaya, Girnâr, Âbû, etc., are survivals of the earlier stûpas. They were also known as ‘Chaityas’—as stûpas are still called in Nepal and Tibet.—Bühler, ‘Legend of the Jaina Stûpa at Mathurâ’; ‘Epigraphia Indica,’ vol. ii. plates at pp. 314-321; ‘Actes du Vienna Congrès Int. Orient.’ vol. iii. pt. ii., plate at p. 142; and *infra* pp. 111, 130.

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² Dâgaba is a Singalese word applied to a stûpa, from the Sanskrit “dhâtu,” a ‘relic,’ ‘element,’ and “garbha” (in Pâli “gabbho”) a ‘womb,’ ‘receptacle,’ or ‘shrine.’ Dhâtugarbha is thus the relic-receptacle or inner shrine, and is strictly applicable only to the dome of the stûpa, sometimes called the “anda” or egg. ‘Dhâtus’ were not merely relics in the literal sense, but memorials in an extended acceptation, and were classified as—corporeal remains; objects belonging to the teacher, as his staff, bowl, robe, holy spots, etc.; and any memorial, text of a sacred book, cenotaph of a teacher, etc. Stûpas are known as Chaityas in Nepal, and as Dâgabas in Ceylon.

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4th. *Chaityas*¹ *or Assembly Halls.*—Chaitya is a more general term than stûpa, and may be applied to any building of the nature of a religious monument, but more correctly to the second division of stûpas, or those commemorative of acts, miracles, etc., or not funerary.² But it has further been restricted so as to correspond with the churches of the Christian religion: their plans, the position of the altar or relic casket, the aisles, and other peculiarities are the same in both, and their uses are identical in so far as the ritual forms of the one religion correspond to those of the other.

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¹ The word Chaitya, like Stûpa, means primarily a heap or tumulus, but it also means a place of sacrifice or religious worship, an altar—from *chitâ*, a heap, an assemblage, etc. Properly speaking, therefore, the chaitya caves ought perhaps to be called “halls containing a chaitya,” or “chaitya halls,” and this latter term will consequently be used wherever any ambiguity is likely to arise from the use of the simple term Chaitya.

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² All structures of the nature of sanctuaries are Chaityas, so that sacred trees, statues, religious inscriptions and sacred places come also under this general name.

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5th. *Vihâras or Monasteries.*—With the Buddhists and Jains a Vihâra was a hall where the monks met and walked about; afterwards these halls came to be used as temples, and sometimes became the centres of monastic establishments. Like the Chaityas, they resemble very closely the corresponding institutions among Christians. In the earlier ages they accompanied, but were detached from, the Chaityas or churches. In later times they were furnished with chapels in which the service could be performed independently of the Chaitya halls which may or may not be found in their proximity.

Cites (4)