History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c25.s2.4

v2.c25.s2.4

The outline of this temple in elevation is not, at first sight, pleasing to the European eye; but when once the eye is accustomed to it, it has a singularly solemn and pleasing aspect. It is a solid, and would be a plain square tower, but for the slight curve at the top, which takes off the hardness of the outline and introduces pleasingly the circular crowning object (Woodcut No. 315). As compared with that at Tanjor (Woodcut No. 213), it certainly is by far the finer design of the two. In plan the southern example is the larger, being 82 ft. square. This one is only about 66 ft.¹ from angle to angle, though it is 75 ft. across the central projection. Their height is nearly the same, both of them being over 180 ft., but the upper part of the northern tower is so much more solid, that the cubic contents of the two are probably not very different. Besides, however, greater beauty in form, the northern example excels the other immeasurably in the fact that it is wholly in stone from the base to the apex, and—what, unfortunately, no woodcut can show—every inch of the surface is covered with carving in the most elaborate manner. It is not only the divisions of the courses, the roll-mouldings on the angles, or the breaks on the face of the tower: these are sufficient to relieve its flatness, and with any other people they would be deemed sufficient; but every individual stone in the tower has a pattern carved upon it, not so as to break its outline, but sufficient to relieve any idea of monotony. It is, perhaps, not an exaggeration to say that if it would take a sum—say a lakh of rupees or pounds—to erect such a building as this, it would take three lakhs to carve it as this one is carved. Whether such an outlay is judicious or not, is another question. Most people would be of opinion that a building four times as large would produce a greater and more imposing architectural effect; but this is not the way a Hindû ever looked at the matter. Infinite labour bestowed on every detail was the mode in which he thought he could render his temple most worthy of the deity; and, whether he was right or wrong, the effect of the whole is certainly marvellously beautiful. It is not, however, in those parts of the building shown in the woodcut that the greatest amount of carving or design was bestowed, but in the perpendicular parts seen from the courtyard (Woodcut No. 316). There the sculpture is of a very high order and great beauty of design. This, however, ought not to surprise us when we recollect that at Amarâvatî, on the banks of the Krishnâ, not far from the southern boundary of this kingdom, there stood a temple more delicate and elaborate in its carvings than any other building in India,¹ and that this temple had been finished probably eight centuries before this one was erected; and though the history of art in India is now written in decay, its growth and vitality had, in earlier times, been vigorous.