History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s15: Vellor and Pêrûr.
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s15
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Vellor and Pêrûr.
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Although the temples at Vellor and at Pêrûr, near Koimbatur, can only rank among the second class as regards size, they possess porticos of extreme interest to architectural history, and are consequently worthy of more attention than has been bestowed upon them. That at Vellor, however, is unfortunately situated in the fort occupied by the British, and has consequently been utilised as a store. Walls have been built between its piers, and whitewash and fittings have reduced it to that condition which we think appropriate for the noblest works of art in India. Enough, however, still remains to enable us to see that the Kalyâna mantapam here, though not one of the most elegant, is one of the oldest porches in the south. As will be seen from the woodcut (No. 232), the Vyâlîs and rearing horsemen are clearly and sharply cut, and far from being so extravagant as they sometimes are. The great cornice, too, with its double flexures and its little trellis-work of supports, is not only very elegant in form, but one of those marvels of patient industry, such as are to be found hardly anywhere else. There are many such cornices, however, in the south: one at Avadaiyâr-kôvil, in Tanjor district, is deeper and more elaborate than even this one. The outer facing there is said to be only about an inch in thickness, and its network of supports is more elaborate and more delicate than those at Vellor, though it is difficult to understand how either was ever executed in so hard a material. The traditions of the place assign the erection of the Vellor mantapam variously to the year 1350, and according to other accounts to about 1485. The bracket shafts (Woodcut No. 233) are similar but even more elegant than those in Pârvatî's porch at Chidambaram; but they are—some of them at least—attached to the pier by very elegant open-work, such as is found in Pratâpa Rudra's temple at Worangal (Woodcut No. 252), or in the windows at Halebîd. As both these examples are earlier than 1300, it might seem that this one was so also, but it is difficult to feel certain when comparing buildings so distant in locality, and belonging to different styles of art.
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232. Portico of Temple at Vellor.
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The date of the porch at Pêrûr (3 miles south-west of Koimbatur) is ascertained within narrow limits by the figure of a sepoy loading a musket being carved on the base of one of its pillars, and his costume and the shape of his arm are exactly those we find in contemporary pictures of the wars of Aurangzîb, or the early Mârâthas in the beginning of the 18th century. As shown in Woodcut No. 234, the bracket shafts are there attached to the piers as in Tirumalai Nâyyak's buildings, and though the general character of the architecture is the same, there is a coarseness in the details, and a marked inferiority in the figure-sculpture, that betrays the distance of date between these two examples.
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Slight as the difference may appear to the unpractised eye, it is within the four centuries that include the dates of these two buildings (1350 to 1750) that practically the whole history of the later Dravidian temple architecture is included. For it is safe to assert that nine-tenths, at least, or more, of those which are now found south of the Tungabhadrâ, were erected or largely extended and rebuilt between these dates.
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The earlier works of the seven centuries that elapsed between the carving of the rocks at Mâmallapuram and the erection of the Vellor pagoda have almost totally perished. But during that period, a style was elaborated and so fixed that it should endure for five centuries afterwards, with so little change, and with only that degradation in detail, which is the fatal characteristic of art in India.
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It seems impossible that the horsemen, the Vyâlîs, and above all, the great cornice of double curvature, shown in the woodcut (No. 232), could have been brought to these fixed forms without long experience, and the difficulty is to understand how they could ever have been elaborated in stone at all, as they are so unlike lithic forms found anywhere else; yet they are not wooden, nor is there any trace in them of any of their details being derived from wooden architecture, as is so evidently the case with the Buddhist architecture of the north. One suggestion that occurs to me is that they might be derived from terra-cotta forms. Frequently, at the present day, figures of men on horseback larger than life, or of giants on foot, are seen near the village temples made of pottery, their hollow forms of burnt clay, and so burnt as to form a perfect terra-cotta substance. Most of the figures also on the gopurams are not in plaster as is generally said, but are also formed of clay burnt. The art has certainly been long practised in the south, and if we adopt the theory that it was used for many ornamental purposes along with wood or stone, it will account for much that is otherwise unintelligible in the arts of the south. But we may further suppose that the broad sloping slabs of the earlier temples having no level bed to rest on the wall head, and being apt to slide down, 233. Compound Pillar at Vellor. (From a Photograph.)
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234. Compound Pillar at Pêrûr. (From a Photograph.)
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the curved form was devised to secure a flat rest on the wall and at the same time that the wall or roof above might have a flat plate on which to rest : and besides the outward curve afforded a better opportunity for supporting it upon brackets.
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The loss of the earlier structures that would have made all this clear is largely due to the Muhammadan raids in the beginning of the 14th century, when these iconoclasts spared no shrine they found on their marches. What escaped them was either "restored" beyond recognition by zealous Hindû princes and temple builders, or is now in the innermost enclosures, inaccessible to any European capable of judging of their style and age. The few old shrines at Conjivaram, noticed above, and some scattered and neglected ruins do remain, and are very instructive; the desideratum is that adequate surveys of them are so slow in being published.