The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c7.5

c7.5

We learn from Megasthenes that the imperial palace was planned on a grand scale like those of Sûsa and Ekbatana, that it was gorgeously decorated with gold and silver and placed in the midst of a fine garden with numerous water-ponds—a description which might apply equally well to the palaces of the Great Moguls. It is highly probable that Chandragupta, like his grandson, made considerable use of craftsmen from Persepolis or from Mesopotamia. Indeed, the latest discoveries of Western scholars seem to make it necessary to abandon the theory that the early Aryan invaders of India were only nomads whose practice in the arts was chiefly confined to war and agriculture. If it be true—as the Russian scholar, Sheftelovich, asserts—that the Kassites, who took Babylon in 1746 B.C., and established a dynasty there which lasted 600 years, were Aryans speaking Vedic Sanskrit, whose chief god was Sûryas, Babylon must be regarded as a half-way house of the Aryan race in its march towards the Indus Valley, and some at least of the early Aryan tribes must have acquired, before they entered India, not only the high spiritual culture which is reached in the Rig Veda, but a prolonged experience of the civic arts, including architecture.