History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c25.s18: Kântanagar.
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c25.s18
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Kântanagar.
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In addition to the great Indo-Aryan style of temple-building described above, there are a number of small aberrant types which it might be expedient to describe in a more extensive work; but, except one, none of them seem of sufficient importance to require illustration in a work like the present. The exceptional style is that which grew up in Bengal proper, and is practised generally in the province at the present day. It may have existed from an early date, but no very old examples are known, and it is consequently impossible to feel sure about this. ¶ Its leading characteristic is the bent cornice, copied from the bambu huts of the natives. ¶ To understand this, it may be as well to explain that the roofs of the huts in Bengal are formed of two rectangular frames of bambus, perfectly flat and rectangular when formed, but when lifted from the ground and fitted to the substructure they are bent so that the elasticity of the bambu, resisting the flexure, keeps all the fastenings in a state of tension, which makes a singularly firm roof out of very frail materials. It is the only instance I know of elasticity being employed in building, but is so singularly successful in attaining the desired end, and is so common, that we can hardly wonder when the Bengalis turned their attention to more permanent modes of building they should
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354. Temple at Kântanagar. (From a Photograph.)
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have copied this one. It is nearly certain that it was employed for the same purposes before the Muhammadan sovereignty, as it is found in all the mosques at Gaur and Mâldâ; but we do not know of its use in Hindû temples till afterwards, though now it is extremely common all over northern India.
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One of the best examples of a temple in this style is that at Kântanagar, 12 miles from the station of Dinâjpur. It was commenced in A.D. 1704 and finished in 1722.¹ As will be seen from the preceding illustration (Woodcut No. 354), it is a nine-towered temple, of considerable dimensions, and of a pleasingly picturesque design. The centre pavilion is square, and, but for its pointed form, shows clearly enough its descent from the Orissan prototypes; the other eight are octagonal, and their form suggests, as its origin, a number of bambus arranged in a circle or polygon, with their heads bent together and cords binding them horizontally at equal intervals.² The pointed arches that prevail throughout are certainly derived from Muhammadan originals, but the building being in brick their employment was inevitable.
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¹ Buchanan Hamilton, ‘Eastern India,’ edited by Montgomery Martin, 1837, vol. ii. p. 628. It is a Vaishnava temple.
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² The turrets of these temples resemble somewhat the sikharas of Jugal Kishor and Madan Mohan at Brindâban (Plate XXVII.), which the Dinâjpur Mahârâja had visited just before building his Kântanagar temple. Examples of this form of construction, both for polygonal and square sikharas, are found among the later Jaina temples at Kundalpur in the Damoh district of the Central Provinces, at Sonâgarh (Woodcut No. 297), and at Khajurâho. — See Griffin’s ‘Famous Monuments,’ plate 51 ; or G. Le Bon, ‘Les Monuments de l'Inde,’ p. 89, fig. 80.
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No stone is used in the building, and the whole surface is covered with designs in terra-cotta, partly conventional, and these are frequently repeated, as they may be without offence to taste; but the bulk of them are figure-subjects, which do not ever seem to be repeated, and form a perfect repository of the manners, customs, and costumes of the people of Bengal at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In execution they display an immeasurable inferiority to the carvings on the old temples in Orissa or in Mysore, but for general effect of richness and prodigality of labour this temple may fairly be allowed to compete with some of the earlier examples.
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There is another and more ornate temple, in the same style at Gopâl-ganj,³ close to Dinâjpur, built in 1764, but in infinitely worse taste and now ruinous; and one known as the Black Pagoda, at Calcutta, and many others all through Lower Bengal; but hardly any so well worthy of illustration as this one at Kântanagar.
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³ Frontispiece to Buchanan Hamilton’s ‘Eastern India,’ vol. ii. and pp. 626-627.