The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c8.61

c8.61

A careful study of the façade of the great hall or *mandapam* of the temple of Virûpâksha at Pattadakal (Pl. VIII, b), one of the earliest of the so-called Dravidian type now extinct, will show a similar relationship between it and the fortified town walls of ancient India. The treatment of the walls, which are divided at regular intervals into pilastered bays each containing the shrine of a deity, is structurally based upon the “embattled fret,” like the brick and stone walls which surrounded an Indo-Aryan fortified village or town: the walls are crowned with an entablature which is a close adaptation in stone of the ancient superstructure with the vaulted roof, which gave shelter to its Kshatriya defenders. Even the sun-windows of the traditional Bengali design are reproduced as decorative features on the stone chhaja. Over the entrance-porch, which may be taken as the type of an ancient Indian town gateway in localities where stone was the usual building material, the naubat-khâna appears as usual, only employed here for purely ornamental purposes.