The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c19.28

c19.28

The classic proportions of the whole structure and the exquisite taste of the sculptured ornament of this little temple will be a revelation to European artists who only know Indian architecture from the over-laboured craftsmanship and redundant decoration of the decadent period. A smaller shrine in the same neighbourhood (Pl. LVIII) and of about the same age reveals the unerring judgment of the Indian master-builder in choosing his site and adapting his structural design to the formation of it. It seems almost as if the Divine hand which piled up this steeple of living rock above the river bank had also sculptured the temple as its finial, so cunningly has the craftsman adapted the canons of his art to the place chosen for the shrine of the Deity.