The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c7.374

v1.c7.374

The question may be here raised as to how far the ancient Aryans were indebted to the Tamulians for their knowledge of stone architecture? On the one hand, the extract from the *Ṛgveda* given above, show clearly that the walled cities which excited the cupidity and envy of the Aryans, were mostly owned by the aboriginal Asuras; and there is not quite as much said of loudly edifices constructed by the Aryans themselves. At a later date, Vyāsa, in the *Mahābhārata*, acknowledges that the great palace of Yudhiṣṭhira was built by a Dānava, Maya by name, who had been overcome by Arjuna in battle; and an admission like this, in a work designed exclusively to extol the greatness of the Aryan race, is of considerable importance. An abstract of a work by this Dānava is still extant. Further, the remains of Tamulian architecture existing in the present day, are more voluminous, more extensive, and more elaborate than Aryan remains. And all these tend to show the superiority of the Tamulians in architecture, and the likelihood of their having been the first teachers in the art to the Aryans. On the other hand, the oldest Indian specimens of the art are not Tamulian, but Buddhist; and they do not bear a close family resemblance to the Tamulian specimens now available; and the relative positions of the Aryans and Tamulians in the scale of civilization were such as not by any means to warrant the assumption that the latter were teachers and the former the taught, in so essential a civilizing art as architecture. The *Ṛgveda* does not profess to treat of the comparative status of architecture among the Asuras and the Aryans, but to glorify the latter by showing how they overcame mighty enemies,—a feeling which has, even in modern times, very largely coloured the despatches of great commanders in the field of battle. The employment of Maya as an architect may be, likewise, due to a similar feeling, proving how complete was his subjugation. Besides, all the mediaeval Tamulian temples are sanctuaries for divinities borrowed from the Hindus, and it is natural to suppose that the temples have followed the images from the same source, even as Native Christian Churches in India, in the present day, follow the order of architecture with which Christianity is associated by the proselytes, and prayers are held most appropriate under Saxon or Italian towers and steeples. On the whole, however, so little is known of ancient Tamulian art as distinct from Aryan, that no satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at under this head.