History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s9: Srîrangam or Seringam.
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s9
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Srîrangam or Seringam.
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The temple which has been most completely marred by this false system of design is the great Vaishnava temple at Srîrangam, 2½ miles north of Trichinopoly, which is certainly the largest, and, if its principle of design could be reversed, would be one of the finest temples in the south of India (Woodcut No. 219, p. 371). Here the central enclosure is quite as small and as insignificant as that at Tiruvâlûr, and except that its dome is gilt has nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary village temple. The plan (Woodcut No. 218) of the inner four courts will explain its arrangements. The fourth enclosure, however, is the most magnificent. It encloses the hall of 1000 columns (S), which measures some 500 ft. by 138 ft. The number of columns is eighteen in front by sixty-three in depth, and 953 altogether.¹ They consequently are not spaced more than 10 ft. apart from centre to centre; and as at one end the hall is hardly over 10 ft. high, and in the loftiest place only 20 ft., and most of the pillars being spaced nearly evenly over 218. Plan of Śrīrangam Temple—the four inner courts. Scale 200 ft. to 1 in.
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¹ The plan is from Capt. Cole’s, re-produced in ‘India: Photographs and Drawings of Historical Buildings’ (Griggs, 1896), plate 53. References to the plan, Woodcut No. 218:—A, South, or Kurat Alwar Gopuram; B, East, or Vellai Gopuram; and C, North, or Nachiyâr-sanadi Gopuram, of the fourth court; D, Vaikuntha Gopuram of the second court. E, the shrine, which, curiously enough, is circular; F, Chandan man-tapam; G, Yajna Sâlâ; H, Garuda mantapam; I, Srî-pandârâ mantapam; J, Sûrya-pushkarâni; K, Râmasvâmi temple; L, Vaikunth temple; M, Chandra-pushkarâni; N, Dhanvantari temple; O, O, Vâsudeva Perumâl temples; P, Narasimha Perumâl temple; Q, Q, Granaries; R, Ranganâyaki temple; S, The Thousand Pillar mantapam; T, Seshagiri-râo mantapam; U, Ranga-vilâsam mantapam; V, Kurat-Alwar temple; W, W, Krishna temples; X, Elephant stables; Y, Kada-kili mantapam.
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the floor, it will be easily understood how little effect such a building really produces.¹ They are, however, each of a single block of granite, and all carved more or less elaborately. A much finer portico stretches across the third court of the Jambukesvara temple from gopuram to gopuram; the pillars in it are much more widely spaced, and the central aisle is double that of those on the sides, and crosses the portico in the centre, making a transept; its height, too, is double that of the side aisles. It is a pleasing and graceful architectural design; the other is only an evidence of misapplied labour. The Seshagiri-râo Mantapam (T), to the south of the preceding, is the most elaborately carved hall in the temple. It is supported by pillars with rearing horses and other figures in front, similar to those in the Madurâ temple, and is probably of about the same age—or the middle of the 17th century. The Gopuram (B), on the east side of this court is 146½ feet in height, and is one of the finest in the temple.
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¹ A plan and section of the Thousand-pillared mantapam and six plates of pillars are given in the 'Journal of Indian Art and Industry,' vol. viii. (1899), plates 89-95, and the same with two others, in 'India: Photographs,' etc. *ut supra*, plates 54-62.
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The three outer enclosures have nothing very remarkable in them, being generally occupied by the Brâhmans and persons connected with the temple. Each, however, has, or was intended to have, four gopurams, one on each face, the superstructures are of brick, and some of these are ornamented in plaster of considerable magnificence. The outer enclosure is, practically, a bazaar, filled with shops, where pilgrims are lodged, and fed, and fleeced. The wall that encloses it measures 2,521 ft. by 2,865 ft.,² and, had its gopurams been finished, they would have surpassed all others in the south to the same extent as these dimensions exceed those of any other known temple. The unfinished southern gopuram, leading to the river and Trichinopoly, measures 130 ft. in width by 100 ft. in depth; the opening through it measures 21 ft. 6 in., and twice that in height. The four jambs or gateposts are each of a single slab of granite, more than 40 ft. in height, and the roofing-slabs throughout measure from 23 ft. to 24 ft. Had the ordinary brick pyramid of the usual proportion been added to this, the whole would have risen to a height of nearly 300 ft. Even as it is, it is one of the most imposing masses in southern India, and probably — perhaps because it never was quite finished—it is in severe and good taste throughout.¹ Its date, fortunately, is perfectly well known, as its progress was stopped by its being occupied and fortified by the French during our ten years’ struggle with them for the possession of Trichinopoly; and if we allow fifty years for its progress, even this would bring the whole within the limits of the 18th century. The other three gopurams of this enclosure are in the same style, and were commenced on the same scale, but not being so far advanced when the work was stopped, their gateposts project above their walls in a manner that gives them a very singular appearance, and has led to some strange theories as to their design.
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² The innermost court, enclosing the temple, measures 240 ft. from north to south by 181 ft. from east to west; the second 426 ft. by 295 ft.; the third 767 ft. by 503 ft.; the fourth 1,235 ft. by 849 ft.; the fifth which, with the remaining two, is occupied by houses, measures 1,653 ft. by 1,270; the sixth 2,108 ft. by 1,846 ft.; and the seventh is 2,521 ft. over all at the south end and about 2,485 at the north, by 2,865 ft. in length.—'Madras Manual of Administration,' vol. iii. p. 833; and Major Cole's plan.
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¹ A drawing of it was published in my ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture.’ It has since been frequently photographed.
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219. View of the eastern half of the Great Temple at Srirangam. (From a Photograph.)
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Looked at from a distance, or in any direction where the whole can be grasped at once, these fourteen or fifteen great gate towers cannot fail to produce a certain effect, as may be gathered from the view in Woodcut No. 219; but even then it can only be by considering them as separate buildings. As parts of one whole, their arrangement is exactly that which enables them to produce the least possible effect that can be obtained either from their mass or ornament. Had the four great outer gopurams formed the sides of a central hall or court, and the others gone on diminishing, in three or four directions, to the exterior, the effect of the whole would have been increased in a surprising degree. To accomplish this, however, one other defect must have been remedied: a gateway even 150 ft. wide in a wall nearly 2000 ft. in extent is a solecism nothing can redeem; but had the walls been broken in plan or star-shaped, like the plans of Chalukyan temples, light and shade would have been obtained, and due proportions of parts, without any inconvenience. But if the Dravidians ever had it in them to think of such things, it was not during the 17th and 18th centuries, to which most things in this temple seem to belong. The shrines and inner prâkâras, however, must be of much earlier date, for we find Jatâvarman Sundara Pândya, about 1254, making large gifts and additions to the temple; and in 1371 Kampana Udaiyar of Vijayanagar was engaged repairing it.²
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² See the inscriptions from the temple in ‘Epigraphia Indica,’ vol. iii. pp. 7ff.; vol. vi. pp. 324, 330; and vol. vii. pp. 176, 177.
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As mentioned above, the great Vaishnava temple of Srîrangam owes all its magnificence to buildings erected during the reign of the Nâyyak dynasty, whose second capital was Trichinopoly, and where they often resided. Within a mile to the east, however, of that much-lauded temple is another, dedicated to Siva, under the title of Jumbukêswara, which, though not so large as that dedicated to Srî Ranganâtha, far surpasses it in beauty as an architectural object. The east gateway of the outer enclosure is not large, but it leads direct to the centre of a hall containing some 250 pillars. On the right these open on a tank fed by a perpetual spring, which is one of the wonders of the place.¹ The corresponding space on the left is occupied by about 470 columns: these together form the Thousand-pillared mantapam. Between the gopurams of the second enclosure is a very beautiful portico of cruciform shape, leading to the door of the sanctuary, which, however, makes no show externally, and access to its interior is not vouchsafed to the profane. The age of the courts of this temple is somewhat earlier than that of its great rival, and being all of one design, they probably were begun and completed at once, and from the simplicity of its parts and details must be earlier than the great buildings of Tirumalai Nâyyak. In fact an inscription on the south wall of the second prâkâram is dated in the tenth year of Jatâvarman Sundara Pândya, who began to reign in 1251;² and, though the outer enclosures were subsequently added—probably as late as A.D. 1600—the nucleus of the buildings must be about as old as the 12th century, and possibly even two centuries earlier.³
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¹ The view in this temple in my 'Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,' No. 21, is taken from the corner of this tank.
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² 'Indian Antiquary,' vol. xxi. p. 121 and vol. xxii. p. 221.
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³ Hultzsch's 'South Indian Inscriptions,' vol. ii. p. 253.
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One of the great charms of this temple, when I visited it, was its purity. Neither whitewash nor red nor yellow paint had then sullied it, and the time-stain on the warm-coloured granite was all that relieved its monotony; but it sufficed, and it was a relief to contemplate it thus after some of the vulgarities I had seen. Now all this is altered. Like the pagodas at Râmêsvaram, and more so those at Madurâ, barbarous vulgarity has done its worst, and the traveller is only too fully justified in the contempt with which he speaks of these works of a great people which have fallen into the hands of such unworthy successors.