History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s1: Arches.
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s1
- Language
- English
Arches.
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BEFORE proceeding to describe the arrangements of Hindû or Jaina temples, it may add to the clearness of what follows on the various styles if we first explain the peculiar modes of constructing arches and domes which they invariably employed.
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As remarked above, although we cannot assert that the Buddhists never employed a true arch, this at least is certain—that, except in the roofs of one or two small chaityas recently discovered, no structural example has been found in India, and that all the arched or circular forms found in the caves are without exception copies of wooden forms, and nowhere even simulate stone construction. With the Hindûs and Jains the case is different: they use stone arches and stone domes which are not copied from wooden forms at all; but these are invariably horizontal arches, never formed or intended to be formed with radiating voussoirs.
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It has been explained, in speaking of Pelasgic art,¹ how prevalent these forms were in ancient Greece and Asia Minor, and how long they continued to be employed even after the principles of the true arch were perfectly understood. In India, however, the adherence to this form of construction is even more remarkable. As the Hindûs quaintly express it, "an arch never sleeps"; and it is true that a radiating arch does contain in itself a *vis viva* which is always tending to thrust its haunches outwards, and goes far to insure the ultimate destruction of every building where it is employed: while the horizontal forms employed by the Hindûs are in stable equilibrium, and, unless disturbed by violence, might remain so for ever.
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¹ Fergusson's 'Ancient and Mediæval Architecture' (3rd ed.), vol. i. pp. 243 *et seqq.*
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There can be no doubt that the Hindûs carried their horror of an arch to an excess which frequently led them to worse faults on the other side. In city walls for instance, where there is a superabundant abutment on either hand to counteract any thrust, the horizontal principle is entirely misplaced. If we take, for instance, one of the city gates at Vijayanagar (Woodcut No. 168), we cannot help perceiving that with much smaller stones
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168. View of City Gateway, Vijayanagar. (From a Photograph.)
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and less trouble a far more stable construction could have been obtained, so long as the wall on either hand remained entire. What the Hindû feared was that if the wall were shattered, as we now find it, the arch would have fallen, though the horizontal layers still remain in their places.
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Instead of a continuous bracket like that shown in the last example, a more usual form, in modern times at least, is that of several detached brackets placed a little distance apart the one from the other. When used in moderation this is the more pleasing form of the two, and in southern India it is generally used with great success. In the north they are liable to exaggerate it, as in the gateway from Jhinjhuwâdâ in Gujarât (Woodcut No. 169, p. 312), when it becomes unpleasing, though singularly characteristic of the style.¹
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¹ Other examples of the same style may be seen in the gateways of Dabhoi.—Burgess and Cousens, 'The Antiquities of Dabhoi in Gujarât,' plates 10, 13, and 16.
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It is this horizontal or bracket mode of construction that is the formative principle of the Dravidian or Southern style of Hindû architecture, every form and every ornament depending almost wholly upon it. In the north, however, another development of the same principle is found in the horizontal dome, which is scarcely known in the south, but which has given a new character to the style, and, as one of its most beautiful features, demands a somewhat detailed explanation.
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169. Gateway, Jhinjhuwâdâ. (From Kinloch Forbes' Râs Mâlâ.)