The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c12.36

c12.36

The great lotus-leaf arch, or sun-window, over the main entrance served to light up the chaitya with the most impressive effect; but, like other constituents of the structural design of the chaitya-house, it was not merely placed there with the self-conscious motive of formal academic composition, which modern authorities declare to be the whole art of architecture; the light had to be focussed upon the chaitya, for the latter was the sacred object upon which the devoted labour of the craftsmen was concentrated. Incidentally the window which illuminated the altar was used to provide the best possible ventilation for the whole chaitya-house. The ends of the purlins which would have supported the wooden or bambu rafters of an Asokan house or cottage (Pl. I, B) roofed in this way, but here piously carved for decorative effect only, appear on the inner edge of the arched window; the outer edge is the pîpal leaf, as before explained. Part of the opening is filled with a frame-work of wood, resembling the torans of a village gateway. A framed lattice of this kind is almost invariably shown in the sculptured sun-windows used as symbolic decoration, except when they serve as shrines for deities. The whole façade above the entrances is decorated with these symbols, combined with the Vedic sacrificial rail. Most, if not all, of the figure sculpture was added in the later Buddhist or Mahâyâna period.