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The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c9: Chapter III

The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c9

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English

Chapter III

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FERGUSSON’SCLASSIFICATIONS OF STYLE—DIVINE WORSHIP IN ANCIENT INDIA—THE VILLAGE SHRINE IN ASOKA’STIME—THE INSPIRATION OF INDO-ARYAN ART

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BEFORE proceeding to analyse further the structure and symbolism of Indian temple-architecture, it is absolutely necessary for the student to make a clean sweep of all the labels and systems of classification by which Western archæologists have agreed to mystify the subject. The reasons for rejecting them will, I hope, become clear later on. The “styles” of Fergusson, whether they are labelled Buddhist, Jaina, or Hindu, or “Indo-Aryan,” “Chalukyan,” or “Dravidian,” are classifications all more or less false as history and misleading as indications of derivation. Fergusson’s great pioneer work was fatally biassed by the fundamental misconception that the history of Indian sculpture, which is the history of Indian temple-building, from the third century A.D. was “written in decay,”¹ and by his total failure to read the symbolic language of Indian art. His theory that the distribution of the Hindu temples with the typical *sikhara*, or curvilinear spire, may be taken to indicate the limits of “the Dasyu province”² is grotesque; and to treat Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism as separate religious factions indicating so many different epochs of Indian architecture is not less opposed to all historical evidence.

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¹ “History of Indian Architecture” (2nd edit. 1910), Introduction, p. 36.

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² Introduction, p. 14.

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The history of Indian civilisation is the history of its village communities, which embraced within their pale many schools of thought differing in philosophical theories, yet all having their common root in the life of the village and in the Vedic philosophy, which remained the motive power of its social and intellectual progress even when teachers arose, like the Buddha, who disputed the efficacy of sacrificial rites and the divine authority which the Brahmans attributed to the Vedas.

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The Indian village always remained the political unit of the state throughout the centuries when dynasty after dynasty succeeded one another in building empires upon that foundation, until the foundation itself was recklessly broken up to make a new one after modern Western models. Its wonderful organisation was the true secret of India's recuperative power when one horde followed another in ravaging the land, or when the continued failure of the monsoon rains brought desolation and famine. The working of the secular bureaucratic machinery, which has been substituted for a system of self-government probably the most perfect the world has ever known and consecrated by the religious sentiment of the Indian people, may justly excite the astonishment of the world. It is an amazing experiment based upon the same ignorance of Indian history which inspired the writings of Fergusson and his followers, but it has still to justify itself.

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Just as the root of Indian religion is to be found in the daily life of the people, rather than in dogmas or religious feasts and ceremonies, so the derivations of Indian temple-architecture must be looked for in the simple shrines of the Indian village, where Indian life continues to find its fullest and most characteristic expression, rather than in the splendid monuments by which royal devotees sought to establish the supremacy of their own particular cult; though the sculptures of Asoka's monuments disclose some of the characteristics of Indian village shrines in the third century B.C.

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The three different degrees of divine worship recognised in modern Hinduism—that of the *Ishta-deva*, or the special aspect of the Divine appropriate to the individual, the *Ego*; the *Grihya-deva*, or the guardian deity of the household; and the *Gramya-deva*, the patron deity of the village—represent the threefold religious responsibility of the Hindu—his duty to God, the family, and the state—the village standing for the whole body politic.

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There were three analogous stages in the evolution of Aryan religion and of Indian religious building. First, the personal religion of the Aryan, which was a direct appeal to the Deity, and needed no shrines except those which God Himself provided; next, his an inferior social position; they were perhaps originally only the attendants at tribal sacrifices who chanted the Vedic hymns and were charged with minor duties, such as the care of sacrificial vessels. But in course of time the increasing complication of sacrificial rites and the of placing it upon a wider social and spiritual basis—that of the *Sangha*, or community, instead of the household or tribe. Thus the simple shrine which served for the religious rites of the Indo-Aryan village grew into the cathedral church of the Buddhist Sangha.

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*garbha-griha* *antarâla* *mandapam* FIG. 12.—Typical Plan of a Hindu Temple.

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There are many representations of village shrines in Asokan sculptures. Pl. IX, A, shows a typical one from Bharhut, which proves that the Indian village shrine of the third century can be easily traced. The familiar name *kuti*, or house, given to such a shrine is sufficient indication. It was originally the hut or cell of some holy man, a hermit, yogi, or rishi of great fame in the village, in which his staff, water-vessel, and begging-bowl would be venerated as memorials after his death. The sanctity of the man would cling to his hut, but the name given to it in the Asokan sculptures originally meant nothing more than that it was the house of a particular hermit or yogi. As, however, hero-worship gradually developed into definite religious cults such as Buddhism and Jainism, the house of the saint came to be regarded literally as the House of God.

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Ordinarily the hut, with its verandah in front or all round it, would become one of the village shrines, the verandah sheltering some other religious devotee, perhaps a *chela*, or disciple of the deceased, who

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A. FROM THE BHARHUT SCULPTURES

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B. DÛRGÂ SHRINE, MÂMALLAPURAM

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C. FROM THE BHARHUT SCULPTURES

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D. FROM THE BHARHUT SCULPTURES

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VILLAGE SHRINES IN ANCIENT INDIA

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epics, the Râmâyana and the Mahâbhârata; to take part in musical festivals, and to listen to the tales of the village *kathak*, or story-teller. It was here, also, that by listening to the learned disputations between the pandits of the village, or of wandering ascetics versed in the spiritual lore of the Aryan sages, that the Indian peasant, illiterate only in the narrowest technical sense, acquired that familiarity with abstruse philo-

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[Figure: (*a*) (*b*) FIG. 13.—Construction of the Domes of a Temple *Mandapam*: (*a*) with concentric rings, (*b*) with slabs laid diagonally.]

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sophical speculations which sometimes astonishes the European who tries to penetrate beneath the surface of Indian life. All this fine traditional culture is being entirely swept away in British India and in "progressive" native states by systems of education devised in the offices of Anglo-Indian cities, as far removed from real Indian life as Manchester and Birmingham, which destroy the spirituality of Indian life, turn the village craftsmen into city clerks, and uproot the whole foundation of Indian civilisation, based upon a far more perfect conception of law and order than that which they seek to establish.

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The Mânasâra, as summarised by Râm Râz, contains several directions regarding the placing of village shrines, but the question arises as to whether it is permissible to assume that this part of Hindu craft-tradition is as ancient as the Buddhist sculptures of Bharhut and Sânchî. Râm Râz infers that it cannot be, because among these directions are some which place "the objects worshipped by Jainas and Bauddhas" outside the village. But I venture to think that he is mistaken in assuming that there is any sectarian contempt or disparagement implied in this passage. It simply records the fact that the principal object of veneration for Jains and Buddhists was the stûpa which originally belonged to the cremation or burial ground, outside the village pale. The provision made for Jain and Buddhist worship in this Silpa-sâstra, and the fact that shrines of Durgâ are placed in the same category, are sufficient proof that there is no sectarian feeling in the injunction.

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One of Fergusson's most fatal errors was his conclusion that the symbolism of Buddhist art was more ancient than that of orthodox Brahmanism, instead of being, as we shall presently see, entirely derived from it. Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Siva are philosophical concepts which have their root in the earliest religious ideas of the Aryan race, and the blunder of dating the history of Hindu temples from about the seventh century A.D.,¹ instead of from the earliest origins of Indian religious building, has put archæological research on the wrong track ever since it was accepted as a truism on Fergusson's authority.

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¹ Fergusson, vol. ii. p. 89.

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*Primâ facie*, it is wholly improbable that the philosophical speculations connected with the three positions of the sun in the heavens which are fundamental to all Indo-Aryan religious belief should have remained without concrete artistic symbols for so many centuries. The fact that the earliest have not hitherto been discovered is only an instance of how a false premiss may obscure the mental vision of experts; but when the fine work of the Indian master-builder in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has entirely escaped the notice of Anglo-Indians, it is natural to expect that they should often lose their way in more remote fields of observation.

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"No one," says Fergusson, "can accuse the pure Aryans of building temples at all, or of worshipping images of Siva or Vishnu."¹ He ignores such passages in the Mahâbhârata as that in Bhishma Vadha Parva, sect. cxiii.²: "The idols of the Kuru King in his temples tremble and dance and weep." The Saivism and Vaishnavism which run through the whole of the Hindu epics Fergusson treats as modern corruptions of the "pure Aryan faith" as expounded in the Vedas, and explains away the evidence which conflicts with his statements as falsifications of the Hindu sacred texts made by the wily Brahman of medieval times. But the architectural theories which he brought forward as evidence break down at every point on close examination. I hold no brief for Hindu theologians. All schools of theology write history from a theological rather than a scientific standpoint; but when one considers how Hindu religious traditions were handed down from one generation to another, the probabilities of any extensive deliberate falsification seem to be very remote. It is easy to falsify a written statement of which only a few copies are made, but that a national oral tradition, the precision of which was scientifically maintained by a most elaborate mnemonic system in which every word and syllable was counted, could be deliberately falsified by a few unscrupulous priests is less credible than the assumption that amateur archæologists sometimes make fatal mistakes.

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¹ "Indian Architecture" (revised edition), vol. i. p. 42.

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² Roy's translation.

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When the Mânasâra Silpa-sâstra gives directions for the placing of Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Siva shrines in the Indian village, and defines their relations to those of Buddhist and Jaina stûpas, there is no reason why it should not be accepted as a tradition as old as any in the history of Indian building, provided that there is no positive evidence to the contrary to be found in ancient monuments. But it is necessary to remember that the Silpa-sâstras are technical, and not sectarian works, and that the terms used must therefore be considered in their technical sense only. It is just at this point that archæologists of Fergusson's school have gone astray.

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A "Brahmâ" shrine which the Mânasâra directs to be placed at the meeting of the four crossways in the centre of the village (see fig. 4) is a cell, square in plan, with its walls fronting the four cardinal points, and an entrance on each side. The sectarian worship to which it is devoted may be Buddhist, Jain, Vaishnavaite, or Saivaite; in itself it is only a cosmic symbol which is common to all sects.

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A "Vishnu" shrine, according to the Mânasâra, has one entrance, always facing the east, except when dedicated to the Narasinha (Man-lion) incarnation of Vishnu, in which case it was to be built outside the village, with its entrance turned away from it. In this exception there may be some old tradition of a Brahman or Kshatriya hero's success in warding off a great danger to the whole Indo-Aryan community. The special characteristic of a "Vishnu" shrine is the curvilinear spire, or *sikhara*—a symbol of Vishnu's pillar, standard, or of his holy Mountain—which Fergusson took as the typical feature of his "Indo-Aryan "style," though he left the origin of it unexplained.

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The key to this question lies in the symbolism, which can be most conveniently reserved for a separate chapter. Here it is only necessary to mention one fact which goes far to show that the "Vishnu" shrine is as ancient as any other—viz. that miniature shrines of this type are constantly being dug up at Sarnath and other ancient Buddhist sites, side by side with the miniature stûpas which were the special symbols of the Buddhists and Jains. For reasons which are given below it is necessary to reject Professor Macdonell's theory¹ of the derivation of the sikhara from the stûpa, to which I subscribed previously.² The constructive principle was the same in both, but the symbolism of the stûpa was different.

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¹ "Journal of the Royal Society of Arts," Mar. 5, 1909.

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² "Indian Architecture: Its Psychology, Structure, and History," 1913, p. 98.

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The most noteworthy example of a "Vishnu" shrine, and one of the earliest now existing, is the famous Buddhist temple of Bodh-Gayâ, built in honour of the Bodhi tree (Vishnu's tree), and of Buddha as the Upholder of the Universe. Not many years ago the possession of the shrine was the subject of a great controversy in which the Government of Bengal opposed the claims of the Mahant of a neighbouring Vaishnavaite monastery to its custody. The official experts seem to have misapprehended the historical aspects of the case, and, as so frequently happens when history is misread, led the Government into a false position with regard to the religious traditions of India.

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As a "Vishnu" shrine may be Buddhist, so it may also be Saivaite, for Siva to Saivaites is Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Siva. It is the image for which the shrine is built which determines the form of the latter. There is some internal evidence as to the antiquity of the Mânasâra traditions in this statement, for image-worship was not generally recognised by philosophical Hinduism until the rise of the Mahâyâna school of Buddhism about the beginning of the Christian era. But shrines for Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Siva were certainly built before this time.

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A "Siva" shrine, in the technical sense, has one entrance facing west, or towards the setting sun, and the roof is of what Fergusson calls the Dravidian type—*i.e.* it is crowned by a dome, evidently derived from the stûpa, but in all buildings now extant reduced to a solidly built symbol. The coincidence that "Vishnu" shrines are chiefly confined to Northern India, and those of the "Siva" type to the south, has nothing to do with "Dasyu provinces,"¹ or with any ethnological question. It is explained by the fact that the schools of Hindu theology which take Vishnu for their *Ishta-deva*² are in the great majority in the north, while those which are the exponents of Saiva philosophy, taking Siva as their *Ishta-deva*, predominate largely in the south. Fergusson's conjecture that Saivism is "an aboriginal superstition assimilated by the Brahmans"³ is pure nonsense.

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¹ Fergusson's "History of Architecture" (new edit.), Introduction, p. 14.

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² See *ante*, p. 35.

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³ "History of Architecture" (new edit.), Introduction, p. 42.

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The derivation of the Hindu temple from the *rathas*, or cars, of Aryan warriors, on account of the poetic imagery used in the Râmâyana and Mahâbhârata, and the attempts made by medieval builders to give literary imagination concrete form by placing stone wheels on the sides of the vimâna, as in the Sûrya temple at Kanârak, has, *pace* Dr. Coomaraswamy and other writers, no historical foundation. It is a clear case of putting the cart before the horse. The temple car on which the sacred image was carried in procession could not have been introduced into the temple ritual before the image itself became part of it—*i.e.* before the first centuries before and after the Christian era—and all the constructive types, as well as the symbolism connected with them, if Indian temple building had been developed before that time. There is no instance of vimânas being made like rathas, or cars, before the tenth century.

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It is equally fallacious to assume, as Dr. Coomaraswamy has also done,¹ that Indo-Aryans borrowed most of their architectural ideas from the non-Aryan tribes which became subject to them. There is absolutely no historical evidence that this was the case, but *per contra* there is strong reason for believing that all the higher culture of the ancient Indian village communities, including their organisation, arts and crafts, was directly due to Aryan inspiration, or to the practical adaptation of Aryan philosophical speculations to the concerns of daily life. I do not mean that the Aryans found India an artistic desert or peopled by primitive savages. The more or less civilised tribes whose immigrations preceded theirs may possibly have acquired their culture, directly or indirectly, from earlier Aryan sources; they may have represented an earlier stratum of Aryan civilisation. This would explain why the Aryans of Vedic India found it comparatively easy to adapt themselves to their Indian environment, without establishing impassable social barriers between themselves and their dark-skinned neighbours; for the exclusiveness of the caste system did not exist in the sixth century B.C. or for many centuries after the time of Buddha. Indian civilisation is, like Hindu sacrificial vessels, an amalgam of many metals; but the fire which fused them and separated the dross was the Aryan genius—the philosophy of the Vedas. If it has once more to go into the melting-pot, those who tear up its foundations should at least study its history carefully from its own standpoint, and equip themselves with sure knowledge of the materials they are using to form the new India, otherwise they are mere empirics in statecraft, playing with forces which they do not understand and which they are unable to control.

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¹ "Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon," p. 107.

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