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The Hindu Temple v1.c9: Part VI. The Superstructure

The Hindu Temple v1.c9

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Part VI. The Superstructure

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शिखरस्य तु भेदेन सर्वेषां भेदमुदिशेत् ।

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“One should point out the differences of all (the Vimānas) from the differences of the Śikharas.”

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‘Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati’, III. Chapter XXVIII. 42.

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VI

I. The Pyramidal Superstructure

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“On an enclosed space they hold the laud in order that they may encompass the Brahman” (‘Pañcaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa’, IV. 9. 11). To encompass the Brahman, to build up in space a compartment corresponding to the Brahmasthāna on the plan, the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala, the dolmen lent its stone walls; they were raised on a socle. A flat roof which served also as ceiling shielded the enclosure on top. The all filling presence of the Brahman, as Brahmā or manifest divinity, was marked by a Liṅga or was centred in an image of the respective divinity. The temple was thus complete in the shape which it has in Uncahara, or in the Gupta shrines of Central India. Enclosure, concentration in secrecy, and their elevation on a level above ground are thus attained and given form; but not as yet has the purpose of this concentration in secrecy been given its architectural form or outward effect. The image within the cavity had itself been raised on a socle, its altar, upon the base of the temple. In this repeated raising of the object of concentration on a higher level, an impetus finds expression in the vertical direction; concentration on the divinity and the elation that accompanies it bring about the elevation, the deity is extolled on ever higher levels until its worship reaches the highest point, the zenithal pole of realisation where this world ends and that world begins, the point limit of the manifest and unmanifest, the Bindu.

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Works of architecture serve a purpose; the Hindu Temple as much as a Gothic cathedral exceed their function of being a house or seat of divinity. While their orientation and expansion are in the four regions of space, their main direction, in the vertical, is towards God, the Supreme Principle, which is beyond form and above His seat or house of manifestation. From all the regions of space, from its walls in the four directions and their corners in the intermediate directions, the Prāsāda rises bodily towards its high point, tier on tier, until diminished in its bulk it forms the High Altar (vedi) on which is placed the crowning High Temple or the Āmalaka with its finial that ends in a point.

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Metaphysical knowledge and realisation by religion have their visible residue in architectural form, in its fundamental shapes and their relation. The square and cube of the walls of the Garbhagṛha, seen from outside, encompass the Centre; thence they rise to the Highest Point by way of the pyramid or such similar shapes which effect a transition from the square of extensiveness, the Vāstu, and from its enclosing walls to the point. The pyramid or its curvilinear equivalent, the Sikhara, placed on the cube, are the inevitable form of the superstructure of the Vimāna.

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The pyramid or its curvilinear equivalent is the superstructure on the walls of the Garbhagṛha (Figs. h, d; Pls. I, XLIII, LXXI), the means by which the purpose of the temple is shown to those who come to see it (darśana) and to attain release. Inside the Garbhagṛha, in the interior of the temple, the superstructure has no effect but that of darkness if it is hollow; a ceiling, however, as a rule, occupies the position of a flat roof.

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The Liṅga or image in the Garbhagṛha, the main object of worship, is the place sought after by the devotee, the Centre where he is made whole. To this centre also leads the vertical, from the high point to which his eye and mind while he approached the temple had been led by the superstructure. The interior cavity, the Garbhagṛha, is the place of release; the external form of the Prāsāda is its monument. Extended in space, its body is reduced to a central point even beyond its bulk.¹

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¹ The entire Prāsāda is a superstructure on the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala.

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The Prāsāda is piled up with the logic inherent in fundamental form; cube and pyramid for example yield the meaning of their co-ordinated shape along the vertical axis. In terms of volume their combination is the result of expansion and then of concentration and contraction; the total monument, the Prāsāda, is a symbol of manifestation on its vertical walls and together with them of its gradual reduction to the point above the sloping sides of the superstructure.

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Such one-pointed monumental forms are not seen in the representation of sanctuaries preserved in early Indian art, in the Buddhist reliefs carved from about the second century B. C. to the third century A. D. To the Buddhists, it seems, Prāsāda meant palace and temple as well, whereas a Hindu temple, the Prāsāda proper with its superstructure leading to the Highest Point, cannot be mistaken for, or derived from a palace or any dwelling of man.

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The term Śikhara was established in Vāstu-śāstra, the texts on architecture, which are known to us from the sixth century A. D. onward only. There it refers to the superstructure of the Garbhagṛha; in the fully evolved Hindu temple north of the river Kistna it is the most conspicuous, indispensable part of the exterior of the Prāsāda. The Śikhara is here understood as the mountain or peak like super-structure above the perpendicular walls of the Prāsāda. It is curvilinear, as a rule.

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In its most widely accepted types, the superstructure comprises the parts which are either a curvilinear and truncated body, a neck (kaṇṭha, gala, grīvā) and crowning part (āmalaka, Pls. I, XLIII, LXXI) or a pyramidal truncated body and on it a small High Temple (vimāna; harmya) whose ‘walls’ form the neck (kaṇṭha, gala, grīvā) of its massive dome-shape as the crowning part (Figs. f-h). Śikhara in the present context is used to denote the whole super-structure including the ‘crown’ and up to the finial; this is the generally accepted meaning in early Vāstuśāstra.

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In South Indian texts, however, the pyramidal superstructure is designated by the number of its storeys (bhūmi) whereas Śikhara is the name of the dome-shaped massive roof of the small crowning miniature temple only (vimāna = kṣudraalpa-vimāna; see Pt. VII). Śikhara in this sense is the subject of verses 65-74, ch. XXXII of the ‘Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati’, Part IV. This Śikhara or massive dome-shaped roof is described as square or circular, six or eight sided.

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∗ Drawn after H. Cousens, ‘The Chālukyan Architecture’, ASI, vol. XLII. NIS, Pls. XXVI and XIX. Similar shrines (Fig. b) at Mahākūṭa have a crowning Āmalaka but are without corner Āmalakas (ASI, Bombay Photographs, 1939-40, Nos. 9554, 9555, 9558) and at Kurnool (Satvel, Rāmaliṅgeśvarasvāmī Temple ; ‘South Indian Epigraphy’, 1940-41, Photograph No. 1973). ** Drawn after a relief of the Gupta age ; Coomaraswamy, ‘Early Indian Architecture’, ‘Eastern Art’, III. Fig. 59.

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I A

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Fig. a.* Liṅga shrine, Mahākūṭeśvar ; Type IA.

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Fig. c.** from Sārnāth ; Type IA.

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Fig. b.* Temple No. 10, Aihole; combined Type IA.1 and IB.1

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Śikhara thus particularly denotes a shape curvilinear in the vertical section whether it is used to designate the whole superstructure of Northern Indian Prāsādas or the cupola of the High Temple only which is placed on top of the superstructure of South Indian Prāsādas. This twofold use of the term Śikhara in Indian Vāstuśāstra has led to wrong interpretations. Its square or round, etc., horizontal section on South Indian temples (śiraś-chanda; ‘Mayamata’, XVIII. 1) has mistakenly been considered by modern scholars a criterion of the entire superstructure of a Hindu temple.

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Śikhara, however, is an ancient term of Indian architecture; it is used frequently both in the ‘Rāmāyaṇa’ and in the ‘Mahābhārata’ when alluding to the Prāsāda in the shape of a mountain, like Kailāsa or Meru. With its storeys it is itself like a mountain (‘Rāmāyaṇa’, IV. 33. 8)² whatever its actual form might have been, of which there is no clear indication given in the Epics. The Prāsāda, high and dazzling like Mount Kailāsa in the Himālayas and like Mount Meru which is known only by the mind, is the seat of divinity and the World Mountain, symbol of the polar axis, the vertical which leads from the Centre to the Highest Point. While the whole temple is generally likened to the Mountain, the term Śikhara in early Vāstu-śāstra generally applies to every variation of the superstructure which rises from the perpendicular walls of the Prāsāda, and covers the Garbhagṛha.

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² Some of the many later inscriptions which so describe it are given here: “Om, a Prāsāda above Himavan . . .”, Inscription of Meruvarman, ASIAR, 1902-3, p. 243. Elsewhere, a stone temple is dedicated “resembling in lustre the mountain Mandara” (ASIAR, 1905-6, p. 183). The Khajuraho Inscr. of the Vikrāma year 1011 (A.D. 953-54) discovered amongst ruins at the base of the Lakṣmaṇa temple, verse 42, extols “a charming, splendid home of Viṣṇu which rivals the peaks of the mountains of snow”. ‘Ep. Ind.’ vol. I. p. 121 f. In South Indian Vāstuśāstra the entire superstructure is discussed according to its number of ‘storeys’ (bhūmi); it bears no special name. The passage of the I. P. given above, strictly refers to the shape of the massive dome of the small High Temple on top of the storeyed pyramid of a South Indian temple. The other parts of the temple should be the same “yathārham tu yathāśobham” lit. as is fit and beautiful (IP. III. XXVIII, 42).

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Its pointed form is generally accepted and preserved in India from the fifth or sixth century A. D. to this day. Various kinds, however, of high roofs of the Prāsāda exist; the apsidal temple with a barrel roof,³ or a rectangular sanctuary with its superstructure crowned by a vaulted roof having a ridge;⁴ neither of these vaulted shapes with their horizontal sky-line express the ultimate aim of Hindu life, which is Mokṣa, release by reintegration. These types, reminiscent of buildings as represented in Buddhist reliefs and also in some of the early paintings in Ajaṇṭā, were not destined to be generally accepted forms of the superstructure of the Hindu temple. The keel vaulted shape became the typical top of the gate towers, the Gopuras, of temples in South India.

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³ This type appears to be an adaptation of the Buddhist Caitya hall. The Kapoteśvara temple at Chezārla appears to have been such a Caitya hall converted for Śaiva worship. The Vadamalliśvara Temple at Oragadam, near Mamallapuram, of the 10th century (ASIAR Southern Circle, 1914-15.) has an apsidal superstructure above its Garbhagṛha, from which it is closed off by a ceiling of teak wood rafters, concrete and plaster.—The Hastipṛṣṭha type figures in Vāstu-śāstra, from the temple called Kuñjara, in the list of the “20 temples” of the ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’.

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⁴ Bhima Ratha at Mamallapuram, about 650 A.D. ; the Navadevī shrine at Yageśvar, Almora (8th-9th century ; ASIAR, 1928-29, Pl. IV) ; the Vaital Deul or Kapālinī Temple, Bhuvaneśvar, Orissa, about 850 A.D. ; the Teli-ka-Mandir, Gwalior, 11th century; the Vaital Deul represents a subvariety of the Khākharā type, also the Teli-ka-Mandir. The ‘Bhuvanapradīpa’, ch. XCVII, (ed. N. K. Bose, pp. 171-73), distinguishes three varieties of the Khākharā type; Draviṛā, Barabhī and Kosoli; these names appear to refer to an originally geographical distribution

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Apart from these vaulted roofs there are several types of domes represented in the reliefs mentioned. They belong to the huts of hermits, to chapels or to temples. The Nāga or Fire chapel represented in one of the Sāñcī reliefs is supported on four posts and has a dome which shows a construction in sections. In this and other examples, four or eight spherical triangles are joined with sharp edges. It is seen in other reliefs that round domes were frequent over circular buildings.⁶ These various dome-shapes were transmuted, as extant examples show, from their leaf covered prototypes (parṇakūṭa, parṇaśālā) and bamboo frame, into brick and stone; they form the solid dome-shape of the small High Temple which crowns the South Indian Prāsāda with its pyramidal superstructure.

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⁶ Agni-gṛha ;-agāra ;-śālā ;-śaraṇa denote a Fire chapel ('Rāmāyaṇa', II. 91, 11; 99. 12, etc.). Huts with domes in four sections are represented in Barhut (R. P. Chanda, 'Beginning of the Sikhara of the Nāgara Temples', Rūpam, 1924, Figs. 1-3); a circular temple with a round dome, the Sudhamma Devasabhā also in Barhut (ib. fig. 4); cf. Pt. V, note 18. A building, having apparently an oval—or rectangular—plan and an oval (?) curvilinear tiled roof with a ridge, is represented in a relief of Stūpa II; Sāñcī; Marshall-Foucher, 'The Monuments of Sanchi', vol. III. Pl. XC, 86a. The Nāga chapel is represented in the second panel on the interior face of the left jamb of the East Gate.

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The pyramidal trunk itself of the superstructure has no prototype in the relief representations of Barhut and Sāñcī. Only the dome of the High Temple, the small Vimāna (Figs. e-h) resembles by its external shape the types of domed buildings represented in the early reliefs. The High Temple however is not a building, it is a massive crown of the monument.⁷ As a rule the storeyed pyramidal super-

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⁷ The non-structural function of the diminutive High Temple is also to be seen on one

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II [B]

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Fig. d.⁵ Temple No. 9, Aihole

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of the varieties of the Khākharā type, but similar to the names of the domes of Sikharas in South Indian temples they are used for the purpose of classification only. Cf. Pt. VII, note 56.

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⁵ From Cousens, 'The Chālukyan Architecture', Pl. XVI.

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structure is nothing but a monument; it may be altogether solid, such internal space as it then may contain lessens its weight, is due to structural expediency and being unassessable from outside and, as a rule, inaccessible, has no architectural significance.⁸ This applies also to the curvilinear Śikhara.

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⁸ See however the Vaikuṇṭha Perumal Temple, in Conjeevaram (Pt. V, note 89); or the Mahābodhi Temple in Bodh-gayā, which had a chamber opening from the second storey.

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The superstructure of the Hindu Temple is not a high roof. None of the roof forms represented in the early reliefs nor built to-day in rural India have been stretched or stilted in order to yield the height of the superstructure.

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The superstructure of the Hindu temple is a monument whose raison d’être is symbolical. Where it is piled up in horizontal tiers, each similar to the other, their profiles owe their variety in different types of temples to several architectural constituents which in their original context have their main extension in the horizontal. The horizontal courses and mouldings of the superstructure are adaptations of various structural forms. The main tiers or storeys are called Bhūmi; they are the levels of the superstructure and of the spiritual ascent of the devotee.⁹

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⁹ In some temples in Bhuvaneśvar, Orissa, constructed after the tenth century and generally in temples of Northern India subsequent to the thirteenth century, no horizontal mouldings appear on the curvilinear Śikharas.

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The two main types of the superstructure of the fully evolved Hindu temple both have truncated bodies; their sides which are either straight or curved are terminated by a platform (skandha; the shoulder course). Above rests the crowning portion, (a miniature Vimāna or an Āmalaka) whence rises the finial.

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The ascent towards the highest point, is given shape by a concourse of several components. The pyramidal superstructure, in its generally accepted shape in South India for example, (Figs. f-h), is composed of three main factors of which (1) the recessed tiers or storeys are the chief and supporting element; (2) above the last of these storeys rises the miniature Vimāna or Harmya, the High Temple; (3) each storey is surrounded by a rampart or enclosure composed of chapels. In this its complete form, the pyramidal superstructure is an amalgam of several independent types of buildings. Its form is complex; it is, however, not the only of its kind. Contemporary with it are other forms of the pyramidal superstructure, though less rich in components.

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The evolution of the superstructure did not take place in one narrow channel. Contributors to its form are many and so are their combinations but their conjunction is to one end, to lead from a broad base to a high central point; all the resources that lend themselves to this end are strung together and amalgamated. Simple, aboriginal types for example are incorporated in the most evolved and complex monuments.

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One of the sites most helpful in gaining an understanding of several leading types of the superstructure is Mahākūṭeśvara (Makuṭeśvara), near Bādāmi, Bijapur

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of the small shrines of Aihole (No. 11); Cousens, ‘The Chālukyan Architecture’, p. 48, fig. 13; it is placed above the flat tiers of the pyramidal superstructure. The designation “High Temple” is made by analogy of the term “High Altar”.

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The ‘Bhuvanapradīpa’ (N. K. Bose, ‘Canons of Orissan Architecture’, p. 114) enumerates in the downward direction, the presiding divinities of a Śikhara of 10 Bhūmis.

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District, where many temples surround a tank in which a small Liṅga shrine is built (Fig. a). The main temple, that of Śiva Makuṭeśvara, has given its name to the place and is mentioned in an inscription dated 601 A. D. from which it appears

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I B to have been constructed in the third quarter of the sixth century. In its superstructure are combined all the factors mentioned above by which is distinguished the most complex type of its Southern form. Other temples of this site have pyramidal superstructures of a more simple type; others again have curvilinear Śikharas, fully evolved as far as their constituent factors are concerned.¹⁰

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∗ Drawn after JISOA, vol. V, Pl. XI. Finial partly missing ; (lost, in Fig. f).

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¹⁰ The date corresponding to 601 A.D. is given in an inscription at Mahākūṭeśvara, H. Cousens, ‘The Cālukyan Architecture’, op. cit., p.

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Fig. e.* Śiva Temple at Enadi, Pudukottai

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g. Shore Temple, Mamallapuram

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Fig. f. Dharmarāja Ratha, Mamallapuram

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The temples at Mahākūṭeśvara having curvilinear Śikharas¹¹ may also be of the same or a slightly later date; they seem to correspond to the types of temples which are classified in the ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’ of the sixth century and the ‘Matsya Purāṇa’ which have doubtlessly Śikharas of the curvilinear type.

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The Pāpanātha temple at Paṭṭadakal was built after 650 A. D. Here the curvilinear Śikhara is closely related to those of Aihole (Fig. d) and Mahākūṭeśvar and appears to represent a more fully evolved type: the central buttress having its compositional theme perfected in a continuous pattern which forcibly sets it off against the lateral parts of the Śikhara. This is not so clearly evident on any of the other temples referred to and may indicate that they represent an earlier phase of the curvilinear Śikhara.

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The importance of the site of Mahākūṭeśvar is supplemented by the early temples of Aihole, Bādāmī and Paṭṭadakal, all closely related historically, being the three successive capitals of the early Cālukya dynasty. In this small triangle of the Kanarese country from the fifth to the seventh century and later, the many shapes which were to remain the essential constituents of the superstructure of a Hindu temple to this day appear assembled and variously combined.

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The following constitute the main contributions to the formation of the superstructure:

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I. The principle of stratification in receding tiers. It has two main branches, the one (IA) having a flat or sloped roof, its cornice or eaves, for its unit, and the other (IB) having a complete storey for its unit.

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II. The shape of the ‘Tabernacle’, the primeval sacred structure made of bended bamboos, branches, etc. It gives its curvilinear outline to the Śikhara. In its earliest appearance in preserved temples,¹² the horizontal courses of mouldings (IA), are embodied in its curved surfaces (Fig. d).

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It is seen thus that type I in its form IA, is also merged in type II,¹³ whereas type IB exists by itself throughout South India.

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In type IB, the following are the main contributors:

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(1) the central ‘cube’ in reality a low prism, of the walls, repeated in each storey; (2) the High Temple or miniature Vimāna, the neck and crown of the pyramid; (3) the enclosure or rampart of small shrines or chapels surrounding the central walls and in some of the earlier South Indian temples sufficiently distant to allow for an air space between the central walls and the rampart of chapels (Figs. f-g).

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⁵² The temple of Makuṭeśvara with its rectilinear superstructure consisting of storeys is thereby definitely dated. See also note 57. ¹¹ Cousens, op. cit., Pl. XXVI. Re. the Pāpanātha Temple, see ib., p. 68 ; Pl. L. ¹² See Part V, notes 75 and 67. Fergusson, HIEA, I. p. 324, rightly remarked: “The style is complete and settled in all its parts. There was no hesitation then, nor has there been any since.” ¹³ See however note 9.

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I B

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Fig. h. Bṛhadīśvara Temple, Tanjore

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Type II has an Āmalaka for the crown of its high trunk. It is a flattened shape, a cogged stone of which the circular horizontal sections are scalloped or lentil like, etc. The scallops are generally convex (Pls. I, II) and rarely concave (Pl. XLV). Every curvilinear Śikhara on a square or circular base has an Āmalaka as its crown.

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The Āmalaka, however, crowns also type IA¹⁴ (Figs. a, c); its place furthermore, is also at the corners of a Bhūmi or ‘storey’ of type IB.1, and at each unit of several strata, of type II (Fig. d). Whereas a ‘storey’ or Bhūmi of the type IB roughly corresponds, on a reduced scale to a storey in the usual sense and consisting here of the wall with its pillars, architrave (IB.1), and, in South Indian temples, a roll cornice, the latter representing the edge of the roof, its eaves, a storey or Bhūmi in types IA and II consists of eaves and recesses alternating or combined in several courses.

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¹⁴ Liṅga pavilion at Mahākūṭeśvara, etc. Cf. also the temples at Sūtrapāda, etc. in Kathiawar.

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The High Temple similarly is not confined to type I only. A certain variety of the curvilinear Śikhara (II) rising from the rectangle of the temple walls is crowned by a High Temple.¹⁵

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¹⁵ This type has a rectangular and not a square plan (Pt. VI, note 4). It is known as Khākharā; N. K. Bose, op. cit., Pl. preceding p. 49. ‘Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati’, III. ch. XXIX. 107 (kakara-koṣṭhaka).

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Type IB and type II are the most widely represented forms of the superstructure. The curvilinear Śikhara (type II) is the general form of the superstructure—though not the only one—throughout Northern India as far south as the rivers Kistna and Tungabhadra. Further south, in the Drāviḍa country, it ceases altogether. The northernmost representative of type IB is the rock-cut Kailāsanātha temple in Elura.

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Type IB prevails in the Drāviḍa country and is well represented in the Kanarese districts of the Deccan. In earlier centuries, from the 5th to the 8th approximately, type II also was frequent in the Kanarese districts (Fig. d) but subsequently its occurrence is rare.¹⁶ Certain of its features were combined with type I and a new style was then evolved.

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¹⁶ The temple of Gaṇapati at Hangal, Dharwar; Cousens, op. cit. Pl. LXXXVII. Precursors and contributors of type I, on the other hand, are found also in Northern India, in the Panjab, in Bengal, etc. (Pt. V, note 89).

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Some of the main components are common to types IA and II. Type IB shares with them many lesser particulars (Śukanāsā, and others) besides the main principle of their combination. Type IA occurs sporadically in different parts of India. This is also true of type IB where its component IB.1 is found forming a sub-variety in which this type of superstructure consists of a superposition of wall prisms or sanctuaries only, in receding storeys.

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The superstructure, type IB.1-3, however, is a composite monument in which have been coalesced various forms of buildings and their combinations.

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The curvilinear Śikhara, type II, is the most prolific; it is built over the largest part of India and is also a nucleus for innumerable variations of which the theme is always the shape of the Tabernacle, Formed originally from the curves of vegetation, similar in their meeting at a point to the curves of a germinating plant, it throws forth part-forms of itself, parts of its own intrinsic shape, alike a living plant. Its expanding, proliferating exuberance is, however, gathered and united in the point towards which its curves ascend.

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The single point towards which are raised its curved sides, is also the aim of type IB in which have congregated several forms of buildings and planning. They have been absorbed by the discipline of its pyramidal shape. The evolution of this type is not by proliferation but by increasing coalescence.

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In the various parts of India, in the course of roughly one millennium, many solutions were found and in part rejected. The main components of the superstructure have been indicated; their places of origin in different traditions will now be traced. However wide apart these may lie, the superstructure, together with the Prāsāda, in its fully evolved form is one consistent monument. Seen from outside, the socle or base supports its perpendicular walls from which rises the superstructure and carries the crown of the temple, the High Temple or the Āmalaka, on which rests the finial. Superposition of several units and their coherence in one solid monument is once again the principle of the superstructure itself, in its composition along the vertical.

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Structural forms of architecture such as the Tabernacle, the dome, and also the wall cube or prism of the ‘dolmen temple’, its cornice and other roof forms and their eaves are as much integrated in the monument of the superstructure as are also originally non-structural and purely symbolical forms of architecture of which the Āmalaka is the foremost. The conjoining of these constituent parts, in various selections and their consolidation in well defined types have produced the multiform countenance of the superstructure.

IA: The Pyramidal Superstructure Formed of Slabs

IA. 1: The Stepped Trunk of the Pyramid

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The superstructure is seen to enter the history of Indian architecture in one of its pristine modes in the water-pavilion at Mahākūṭeśvar (Fig. a). On a flat roof slab, supported by 4 corner-pillars only, another smaller slab is placed and above it in the centre is an Āmalaka. The slabs which thus cover the Liṅga pavilion in the tank called Viṣṇu-puṣkariṇī of Mahākūṭeśvar form the initial steps of the pyramid. With them is associated the Āmalaka. The Āmalaka here has the same appearance which distinguishes it as part of the capitals of rock-cut pillars in Western India of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. and as part of the shaft of Buddha-pillars carved in reliefs in Amarāvatī in South India.¹⁷ Where however it is part of the shaft of the pillar the latter appears to pass through it and to be clasped by its cogged rim,¹⁸ It is then a ring-stone, perforated. On the pointed superstructures of the temples of India north of the Kistna, the Āmalaka is the support of the finial of the temple and is itself supported by the round shaft of the neck (grīvā, gala, kantha; see however also Fig. d. where the Āmalaka is missing) which seems to emerge from the shoulder course (skandha), the uppermost course of the trunk of the Śikhara (Pl. I). This presupposes a central shaft (Parts V and VII) which having traversed the entire body of the Prāsāda would emerge above it, support, and be rivetted in, its crown, the Āmalaka. As a clasp and ring-stone, the Āmalaka would be a ‘naturally perforated’ stone alike in this respect to the ‘svayamātṛṇṇās’, the naturally perforated ‘bricks’ in the centre of the Fire Altar. There, they had been placed in vertical succession, the third and last of them upon the centre of the completed fifth, or uppermost layer of the Agni.

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¹⁷ Coomaraswamy, HIIA, Fig. 136; ‘Elements of Buddhist Iconography’, Pl. I. Figs. 2, 3.

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¹⁸ The Āmalaka functions as a ring in relief representations at Nāgārjunakoṇḍa (ASIAR, 1935-36, Pl. XXX. c-e). This Āmalaka ring is slipped over a composite symbol, which has the shape of a Makara on one side of the ring, and of a lion (siṃha) on the other.

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The superstructure of superimposed and diminishing slabs of stone forming a stepped pyramid surmounted by an Āmalaka is a pristine type of the superstructure of the temple. In decreasing size, slab upon slab are placed on the roof of dolmen type shrines in South India and the Himālayas as well.¹⁹ In its stratification is repeated the horizontal theme of the base, where the walls of the Garbhagṛha are raised on the Adhiṣṭhāna.

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¹⁹ Whitehead, ‘The Village Gods of South India’, Pl. IX ; Liṅga shrines near Hardwar. Nandī Maṇḍapas etc., in different parts of India, have frequently a stepped pyramid of slabs for their roofs, for example the pavilion of the Vaital Deul, Bhuvaneśvar, Orissa, or the Nandī Maṇḍapam of the Viśvanātha temple in Khajuraho ; another in Ekteśvar, Bankura, Bengal ; a representation of a corresponding temple shape on the Ashrafpur Bronze Caitya, Bengal, of the seventh century (S. K. Sarasvati, ‘Temples of Bengal’, JISOA, Vol. II. pp. 130-40); pavilion of the Baijnath Temple, Kangra, 13th century, etc.

IA. 2: The Straight Trunk with Round Edged Slabs

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The slabs, placed one on top of the other, have either straight, vertical edges or the edges are moulded in the shape of a roll cornice or eaves. The lower slab of the Mahākūṭeśvar pavilion has a slightly rounded edge. Its curve is that of the eaves of a thatched roof in miniature. All the varieties of cornice mouldings of the horizontal courses of the superstructure have such eaves for their prototypes. It was in this shape that the steps of the pyramid of the super-structure of the Prāsāda were to be perfected and to enter into new alliances in the centuries; the more austere form of right angles had less elasticity.²⁰

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²⁰ Temples No. 10 (Fig. b) and also No. 7, Aihole (Cousens, op. cit. Pls. XIX, XXI), combine the slab-type (I A) with the storeyed superstructure I B ; note 30.

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Two different building traditions contributed to the pyramidal superstructure whose stratified courses have rounded edges. The underlying shape belongs to stone prototypes. Slabs in diminishing size are placed on the flat roof slab of the dolmen type. Their added weight keeps the roof in position. It cannot be moved; the supernatural presence enshrined should by no means escape.²¹ The slabs, being placed on top of the walls and on the flat roof, became assimilated to roof forms. They were given the shape of the curvilinear eaves of the thatch; cornice mouldings of great antiquity and derived from its curves²² were adapted to the relatively narrow slabs and formed their edges (Fig. c). They softened the hard contour of the original stepped pyramid. A seemingly unbroken outline results of the pyramidal trunk of the superstructure.

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²¹ A similar explanation is given to this day at Bodh-gayā in reply to the question why the tombs of the Mahants near the temple are in the shape of stepped pyramids of considerable size.

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²² The Kapota or roll cornice is frequently carved on the façades of rock cut Caitya halls, for instance at Karle. Its outline is that of a quarter circle approximately. (P. Brown, ‘Indian Architecture’, Pl. XIX. Fig. 2). This cornice, in structural buildings of stone, serves as a dripstone.

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The approximation of the horizontal courses of the superstructure to a particular roof form once having been achieved further varieties were adopted; in each particular instance however one kind only is chosen as the theme and repeated in the several tiers of the superstructure. While the roll cornice moulding gained widest currency in the earlier temples, eaves with a double flexed curve subsequently became used in the same way.²³ Their edge is frequently flattened out into a fillet and preserves the memory of the edge of the horizontal stone slab.²⁴

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²³ This is an extreme possibility to which the shape of the roll cornice lends itself, being an accentuation and protraction of its lower edge which is halted by a fillet. This particular shape of the eaves appears to have been completely evolved in stone architecture and not in the thatched prototype, although in an initial stage the flexed curve belongs already to the dome of the Fire chapel in Sāñci. It occurs for instance in the ‘Old Jaina temple’ at Paṭṭadakal (Cousens, ‘The Cālukyan Architecture’, Pl. LIV, above the door of shrine and Maṇḍapa, but not in the earlier Cālukyan temples, Virūpākṣa Temple at Paṭṭadakal, Pl. XL; Malegitti Śivālaya, Bādāmi, Pl. XXIX). As can be seen in these buildings the end of the overhanging thatch when translated into stone looked abrupt; its form subsequently was softened, the one steep and heavy curve was given a gradual descent and its downward slope became upheld and balanced by a counter-movement. This shape, moreover, was evolved simultaneously as a profile of the base of the temple, and is known in Vāstu-śāstra as Padma or ‘lotus petal’. The roll cornice or Kapota retains its name in the various phases of transformation and it also becomes one of the profiles of the base; see Pl. II, ‘Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus’ by Ram Raz, London, 1834.

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²⁴ Aihole, Temples 37 and 38; Cousens, op. cit. Pl. XXV; the superstructure of the Piṛhā Deul, i.e. the Maṇḍapa, of Orissan temples, from about the tenth century.

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With the introduction of the curve of the eaves of the thatch into the straight edge of the horizontal components of the superstructure, gaps enter their layers and alternate with the variegated profiles of the horizontal mouldings. These gaps are given different height and depth in the single superstructures; as a rule they are deep and narrow and their effect is that of dark bands of shade which cut into the mass of the superstructure without breaking its continuity. Seen across the corners, air and space have entered its solid pile, alleviate it and enrich its slanting and curved profiles with shades, delicate or strong.²⁵

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²⁵ The ‘Old Temple’ at Visavada, Kathiawar (see p. 155) is one of the most elegant solutions of this kind. Together with the slope of the roof, dormer windows (gavākṣa) have become part of each stratum of the superstructure. The association of the superimposed slabs of stone and the roofs of houses is now complete.

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The superstructure develops with the logic of form destined for one purpose. Into this monumental shape, roof forms spontaneously enter; eaves and slopes are adjusted to the levels of the massive pile. Although a fully developed superstructure of the highest kind has not more than 16 Bhūmis,²⁶ each of these may contain a number of roof-edge mouldings, six for example, the number remaining the same in all the Bhūmis, so that ninety-six similar horizontal profiles enliven its courses. With such a number of superimposed roofs no actual building ever rose. Double and triple roofs are frequent in actual buildings; Vāstu-śāstra knows of their employment as Dvichādya, etc. ('Samarāṅaṇasūtradhāra', XLIX, etc.).²⁷ The house of God is other than the houses of men, their roofs are but mouldings and lines of its superstructure and designate its levels.

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²⁶ i.e. the type ‘Meru’ according to the ‘Bṛ. Saṃhitā’, etc. The Bhūmi, originally of one horizontal unit only, soon consists of two or three mouldings. The third course is carved in

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²⁷ See Pt. VII, note 86. A Dvichādya building is for example the Maṇḍapam of the Paraśurāmeśvar temple, Bhuvanesvar; or that of the Uttareśvar temple, both dating from the 8th century; also Temple No. 11, Aihole (Cousens, op. cit. Pl. XXIII) and other buildings in Aihole. The Jagamohan or Maṇḍapam of the Simhanātha Temple, Baramba State, Cuttack, is a Trichādya building (ASI, Bihar and Orissa photograph, No. 5504 of the year 1941-42). Cf. also Part V, note 54.

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The pyramidal superstructure of diminishing horizontal slabs whose edges assumed the curves of different roof shapes is widely distributed in India, although not many temples with this kind of superstructure of the Prāsāda now exist.²⁸ The

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²⁸ The pyramidal superstructures of the temples at Visavada, Bileśvara, etc., in Kathiawar, are so constituted (Cousens, 'Somanātha . . .', op. cit. Pls. XLIII-IV, XXXVII).

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the likeness of an Āmalaka in its corners, and designates the sum of the three courses as one complete sub-śikhara, or one Bhūmi (Temple IX, Aihole, Fig. 4; in Pl. LXXI, three strata are crowned by an Āmalaka). The Liṅgarāja temple at Bhuvanesvar has 6 strata in each Bhūmi.

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This type of the superstructure is represented not only on a relief of Gupta age, at Sārnāth (Fig. c) but also for example, on a lintel at Khajuraho, of the tenth century (B. L. Dhama, 'A Guide to Khajuraho', Pl. XI. b). The transformation of the Āmalaka and of the Gavākṣa in these two relief representations dates them as unmistakably as the change from the still full curve of the single 'roofs' in the earlier example and their stretched, attenuated version in the later type. The pyramidal superstructure composed of tiers and crowned by an Āmalaka is frequently carved on relief slabs and on lintels, pillars, door-jambs, etc. of temples. Small shrines or chapels housing the image of a god are thus represented in relief in Nālandā (Façade of main shrine, Caitya site 12, ASIAR, 1930-34, Pl. LXVII d), in Bengal (in Pāla paintings) or in Central India (Udayapur) etc. They must have had their structural prototypes in Bengal, Bihar, the United and the Central Provinces, etc. throughout half a millennium and more.

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The Piṛhā Deul or Bhadra 'temple', i.e. Maṇḍapas or also gateways of Orissan temples are the most widely employed buildings with this type of superstructure. It appears to have suffered a degradation in Orissa, its place being, as a rule the Maṇḍapa or other auxiliary building of the temple, but not the Prāsāda itself. The name which denotes the horizontal courses of this superstructure is Piṛhā, a 'flat wooden seat' (N. K. Bose, op. cit., p. 185).

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The "Bhāskareśvar" temple in Bhuvanesvar (M. M. Ganguli, 'Orissa and her Remains', Pl. XV. a; this temple, however, is generally known under the name Megheśvar) is an exception for its Prāsāda is a Piṛhā Deul, though the outline of the Śikhara is curvilinear. This temple represents one of the 'transition' types from the straight to the curvilinear shape of which the Mahendragiri temples of the 10th century are earlier and somewhat different examples in Ganjam (ASIAR, 'Southern Circle Report', 1915-16, Pl. XI, p. 35). The "Bhāskareśvar" temple in its present form belongs to a late phase amongst the temples of Orissa.

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The Prāsāda of certain temples in Mayurbhañj State built after the 16th century has a superstructure of the 'Piṛhā' type ('Archæological Survey of Mayurbhañj', Vol. I. pp. 56, 64).

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Not only in Kathiawar, Mayurbhañj, Orissa, Ganjam, etc. does the pyramidal superstructure rise above the Garbhagṛha proper of temples still in existence, but also in the Kanarese Districts of the Deccan and in the adjacent country. They have been taken to represent the "Kadamba Style" (Moraes, 'The Kadamba Kula', Part VII); temples of this kind are also in Aihole (Cousens, 'The Chālukyan Architecture', Pl. XXV; temples of Galagnāth and Nos. 37 and 38), Vijayanagar, etc.; their pyramidal shape however is often deflected into a curvilinear outline (Gravely-Ramachandran, 'The Three Main Styles of Temple Architecture', Pl. I. Fig. 2).

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carved pattern formed by its layers of mouldings alternating with dark bands of shadow, was to be cast also on Type II of the superstructure, the Śikhara with curvilinear sides.

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The pyramidal superstructure composed of narrow horizontal tiers, originally various types of roof edges, cornices or eaves, has several further varieties.²⁹

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²⁹ The pent-roof of laminated boards for instance, lends its slope to the superstructure of the temple at Gop, of Gupta age, in Kathiawar, and to the temples of Kashmir (Temples at Pandrethan, Payar, etc. ; 8th century).

IB : The Pyramidal Superstructure Composed of Storeys (Bhūmi)

IB. 1 : The Stepped Trunk of the Pyramid Formed of Single Storeys

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The other main variety of the pyramidal superstructure is divided into broad horizontal parts each of which represents a storey of a building. This superstructure is a counterfeit of an edifice; it is set as a whole on top of the vertical walls of the Prāsāda. Two varieties of this type are specially clear. The one (IB.1) is represented by few preserved temples only like those of Bodh-gayā or at Sārnāth;³⁰ their gradually receding storeys have each a row of niches in relatively low relief against their compact walls. The other architectural features, Gavākṣas, etc. of this high superstructure are also carved in low relief and alternate in parallel courses with the rows of niches (cf. Fig. b).

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³⁰ JISOA, VI. Pl. XXIV ; Pl. XXIII shows ‘A Miniature Replica of the Mahābodhi Temple’ (pp. 78 f. in an article by B. Rowland Jr.). The conjectural restoration in the drawings on Pls. XXXI and XXXII of P. Brown’s ‘Indian Architecture’ conveys roughly the disposition of the storeys. On a smaller scale, and combined with alternating projecting tiers of the slab roof profile, are Temples 7 and 10 in Aihole. The crowning part of these temples might have been an Āmalaka ; as such it appears in the restoration of the Bodh-gayā temple ; corner Āmalakas support the shoulder course of temple No. 10, Aihole (Fig. b).. In this superstructure the narrow courses with their cornices represent flat roofs above the broader courses representing a storey each whose walls have niches.

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The storeys recede imperceptibly; an Āmalaka moreover, is placed on each corner of each tier-like storey. The composition of this high pyramidal mansion if visualized without any of its sculptural details, without the corner Āmalakas especially and by giving to its abbreviated storeys proportionately greater height, would resemble the stepped pyramid of the Sat Mahal Pāsāda in Polonnaruva, Ceylon, of the 12th Century. No such type is preserved in India itself. The stepped pyramid here, as also in type I A, appears to have been less frequently employed than the pyramid with a seemingly unbroken edge. The latter type however is based on the stepped pyramid and this fact is never completely disguised. This variety of the pyramidal superstructure (IB. 1), shares with the more complex variety (IB. 1-3) the nucleus only, the superimposed wall-prisms in receding storeys.³¹ Carved with many niches and pilasters on each of the four sides it is an effigy of a storeyed mansion, placed on top of another large building with straight walls.

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³¹ The crown of the superstructure seems to have had the shape of the Āmalaka and in this respect it resembles type IA. Intermediate types, like Temples 10, etc. at Aihole (Fig. b) show the drawing from one and the same reservoir of types. Āmalakas occupy the corners, if not of each storey then at least of the highest layer below the top slab. The Āmalaka, a broad and flat shape, on a high neck is shown also on the high pyramidal trunk of the shrines represented on clay seals from Nālandā, of about 1,000 A.D. (Gurudas Sarkar, ‘Notes on the History of the Sikhara Temple’, Figs. 12, 14, ‘Rūpam’, vol. III).

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The pyramidal superstructure with closely set receding tiers (IA) had its beginning in the strata of diminishing superimposed slabs. The pyramidal superstructure with receding storeys on the other hand has its beginning in the superposition of a complete storey of the type described (Fig. b) or of a much simpler type consisting of a cell only on top of another building with upright walls and having one floor only. This can be seen in the cell put perpendicularly on the flat roof of the Gupta temple dedicated to Pārvatī in Nachna Kuthara, and also in the Kuraja Bir Temple near Jhansi which is of later date; similarly also the small shrine of Sūrya, is placed on top of the temple known as Lad Khan in Aihole. These flat roofed cells, remotely of dolmen type, are actual sanctuaries with an interior space; they have not yet consolidated into the exterior only of a compact monument. The principle, however, of piling one complete building, however simple, on top of another remains the same, in the artless combinations and in the compounded solidity of the storeyed, pyramidal superstructure.

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The Sat Mahal Pāsāda in Polonnaruva, Ceylon, is an authorised translation from stone into brick and an enlarged version of the dolmen type raised to the seventh storey on a stepped pyramid composed of similar shapes.

IB. 2: The "High Temple" (Ksudra-Alpa-Vimāna)

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Differing from such consolidated mansions are the superstructures of the temples in the Kanarese districts³² and throughout that part of South India generally known as Drāviḍa. There in the large temples (jāti vimāna; mukhya vimāna), an entire mansion of pyramidal appearance is placed on the vertical walls of the Garbhagṛha (IB. 1). Each storey of this pyramid however consists of the one central building plus a series of small buildings surrounding the walls of the central building (IB. 3; Figs. f-g). The small one-storeyed buildings, aligned in a row serve as a kind of parapet at a given distance from the walls of the main building with its pilasters and niches. The small cottages, cells or chapels which are linked so as to form an enclosure wall or parapet of each single storey alternate in shape; they are square and capped by a dome or rectangular in plan and waggon vaulted; the former type, called Kūṭa, is invariably placed at the corners of the respective floor (bhūmi); its top has the appearance of a dome in four or eight sections (Figs. f, g).

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³² As far as preserved monuments go, these date from an earlier age than the structural and also the rock cut temples of South India; the Mahākūṭeśvar Temple which was in existence before 601, was probably built in the third quarter of the sixth century; more ancient than the well preserved temples are the ruined Kont Gudi temple, and three others near it, in Aihole. In South India, the rock cut temples at Mamallapuram are of the mid-seventh century and the earliest of the preserved structural stone temples were built subsequently, from the later part of the seventh century onwards. The temple of Mahākūṭeśvara has a rampart of chapels in the second storey, another rampart of chapels closely adheres to the third storey; the dome is stilted and has eight sections.

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The small High Temple above the shoulder course (skandha) in which the superstructure culminates (IB. 2) is reminiscent of the simple shrines represented in the reliefs of Barhut and Sāñcī. Placed on top of the trunk of the pyramid, the walls of this High Temple form here the neck (grīvā) of the crowning dome, the ‘Śikhara’.³³ The ‘walls’ of this ultimate temple are alike in their position and function to the shaft (grīvā) by which is upheld the Āmalaka above the curvilinear Śikhara. Here too, in the pyramidal superstructure of superimposed Bhūmis the shaft, be it round, square or octagonal, appears as if emerging from the Prāsāda, as if it were stuck across it from the base to the crown. This visible part of the shaft in which is sheathed the vertical axis of the temple is formed here by the walls of the domed shrine.

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³³ The meaning of the dome is given by Coomaraswamy, ‘Symbolism of the Dome’, ‘Indian Historical Quarterly’, Vol. XIV. The piling of one shape of temple upon the other as its superstructure is the subject of chapter LV of the ‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’. The superimposed temples may be square in plan or circular, etc. their vertical sections also are different and each type has its name, such as Rucaka, etc. “Rucaka or Vardhamāna or Śrīvatsa or Haṃsa, whichever one may like among them, one should set up that on Garuḍa” (SS. LV. 79).

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If the flat roofed cell was the simplest type of a building which had been piled along the vertical axis, and with its flat roof lending itself to repeated superimpositions, the small ‘High Temple’ or Vimāna with its dome is another type of building or temple which was raised on top of a flat roofed building. A domed shrine, the prototype of the ‘High Temple’ of the South Indian temples is for example the Nāga or Fire chapel represented in one of the reliefs at Sāñcī (1st century B.C.), Central India; aggrandised and consolidated in its architectural form is the rock-cut Draupadī Ratha at Mamallapuram (seventh century A.D., South India); with its curvilinear roof in four sections it is another model of this type of one-storeyed temple. It appears in relief representations—raised as a whole and placed on top of another prismatic flat-roofed sanctuary—and also in extant temples of Pallava and Cola age, in South India, such as the temple at Enadi (Fig. e).³⁴ It exemplifies the ‘‘Small’’ South Indian temple (alpa-Prāsāda) and is without the rampart of chapels. The actual date of these developments is not ascertainable from the above examples. About half a century earlier than the Pallava representations, the culminating chapel, with its dome, crowns some of the fully preserved temples of the Kanarese country; there it is not raised to the second storey only but to the third, fourth or fifth.³⁵ In these temples too, another component, the rampart of chapels (IB. 3), has been incorporated whose origin is still discernible in South Indian temples of the Pallava age and is dealt with below.

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³⁴ Pallava relief in Undavalli; A. H. Longhurst, ‘Pallava Architecture’, Mem. A. S. I. No. 17. Pl. XIII; in Mamallapuram, in the Gaṅgāvataraṇa relief; Coomaraswamy, HIIA, Fig. 198; further elaborated temples of this kind are carved in relief in the gable ends of the Bhīma and Sahadeva Rathas in Mamallapuram. Śiva temple at Enadi; ‘Cola Temples in Pudukottai’ by Venkataranga Raju, JISOA, vol. V. Pl. XI.

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³⁵ Mahākūṭeśvar, 6th century; Malegetti Śivālaya, Bādāmī, 6th century; Temple of Saṅgameśvara, at Paṭṭadakal, 696-733 A.D.; half a century later, the Virūpākṣa Temple, and others at Paṭṭadakal, Cousens, op. cit. Earlier temples than these, though destroyed in the upper part, are in Aihole.

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The origins of the consolidated varieties of the superstructure are manifold, the dates of their entry and participation in its body are not known. Their sequence must be reconstructed although architectural solutions which must have preceded derivatory forms are not infrequently preserved in actual buildings some centuries younger than the diverse and derivatory applications. This is only partly due to accidents of preservation, but is itself a symptom of the course of history in India. The original theme remains, either in its pristine or else in its highly evolved form; development is here tantamount to exposition. A form giving the fullest exposition to the meaning it conveys may be contemporary with the nucleus of its meaning represented in elemental terms (Cola temple at Enadi, Fig. e) on the one hand, and at Tanjore (Fig. h) on the other or else is even outlived by the original, elemental form (for instance the fully evolved temples of the type of the Saṅgameśvara at Paṭṭadakal, Bijapur District, of the early eighth century; and the above mentioned tenth century temple in Enadi in Pudukottai).

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