The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c16.31

c16.31

General Cunningham, Dr. Burgess, and others have laboured assiduously to reconstitute from buildings, which from inscriptions can be dated about the fifth or sixth centuries, what they call a "Gupta style," and cite instances to prove the popular archæological thesis that whenever Indian art was great it was owing to contact with Europe. It need not be disputed that Vikramâditya, like the Mauryan and Mogul emperors and their modern Viceregal representatives, might have had an architectural hobby, and that in riding it he may have made use of foreign as well as native craftsmen who were attracted to his court. But that his dilettante efforts affected in the smallest degree the general character of Indian building there is not the slightest proof; nor is it at all probable that this was the case.