History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c8.s3.8

v1.c8.s3.8

Architecturally, there is no difficulty in defining the limits of the Dasyu province: wherever a square tower-like temple exists with a perpendicular base, but a curvilinear outline above, such as that shown in the woodcut (No. 1), there we may feel certain of the existence, past or present, of a people of Dasyu extraction. No one can accuse the pure Aryans of introducing this form into India, or of building temples at all, or of worshipping images of Siva or Vishnu, with which these temples are filled, and they consequently have little title to confer their name on the style. The Aryans had, however, become so impure in blood before these temples were erected, and were so mixed up with the aboriginal tribes whose superstitions had so influenced their religion and their arts that they accepted their temples with their gods. Be this as it may, one thing seems tolerably clear, that the regions occupied by the Aryans in India were conterminous with those of the Dasyus, or, in other words, that the Aryans conquered the whole of the aboriginal or native tribes who occupied the plains of northern India, and ruled over them to such an extent as materially to influence their religion and their arts, and also very materially to modify even their language. So much so, indeed, that after some four thousand years of domination we should not be surprised if we have some difficulty in recovering traces of the original population, and could probably not do so, if some fragments of the people had not sought refuge in the hills on the north and south of the great Gangetic plain, and there have remained fossilised, or at least sufficiently permanent for purposes of investigation.