Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus c3: Preface
Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus c3
- Language
- English
Preface
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THE introduction to the European public of an “Essay on *Hindú* Architecture,” and by a *Hindú*, would seem to mark an epoch not only in the history of the science but also in that of the *Hindús* themselves.
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Their palaces, their temples, the stupendous pyramidal gateways leading to the latter, the colonnades and porticoes with which they are surrounded; some of “a thousand pillars,” others equally remarkable for their elevations, richness, and grandeur of design, have for ages been the objects of admiration to the traveller in the East; and, though it had long been known, proverbially, that the *Hindús* possessed treatises on architecture of a very ancient date, pescribing the rules by which these edifices were constructed, it remained for the author of this essay to overcome the many, and almost insurmountable obstacles to the substantiation of the fact, and to the communication of it to the European world in a well known language of Europe.
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\* The Royal Asiatic Society is chiefly indebted to one of its members, Richard Clarke, Esq., for the accomplishment of this important and desirable object. This gentleman, then recently returned from India, suggested to Rám Ráz to undertake some work which should impart to the European world, through the Royal Asiatic Society, information not yet before them; and he recommended the "Architecture of the Hindús" as a topic worthy of the abilities and talents of his native friend. The circumstances under which he acceded to the proposition, though already brought to the notice of the public in "Rickards's India," merit and indeed claim insertion in an introduction to his work. They are detailed in two letters from the author to Mr. Clarke, extracts from which will be found in a subsequent page.
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As of most other sciences among the *Hindús*, the rules and precepts of architecture and sculpture had been, with some solitary exceptions, locked up in the Sanscrit language; and, as the study of this language was limited, in general, to the higher classes; the only means of improvement left to the artist, who in all cases would be of a subordinate class, were the verbal instructions delivered to him by these superiors, when they might happen to require his assistance; together with the impress on his mind resulting from practical experience. To reduce the knowledge thus acquired to a system, and to promulgate it in a language comprehensible by the vulgar, would, in most cases, have been thought an encroachment on the privileges of the higher orders; and being, therefore, handed down unavoidably from father to son by tradition only, it must, in the natural course of events, have been often obscured or totally lost. Moreover, the study of this, as well as of other sciences, has been very generally laid aside by the higher classes for acquirements more in unison with the tone and feelings of the times; while the treatises themselves, scattered and neglected, became nearly valueless to all but the humble artisan, who gathered up here and there a fragment, and hoarded the occult lore, sometime to be learnt by stealth, or as best might suit the purpose of his lordly and priestly master.
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To collect these remains from far and near; to read, collate, and comprehend them, with the terms and phraseology of the science, was no ordinary undertaking: the assistance of the artist on the one hand, of philologists on the other; corroboration by reference to existing edifices, and the ability to exhibit the results at length deduced, in the technical and scientific language of a foreign people, were all equally necessary to the completion of the task.
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It must, however, be understood that the author does not profess to give the whole system of architecture as known to the *Hindús* at any particular period, or indeed, a complete translation of such portions of those treatises as he was able to collect; but, from his deductions and illustrations, such an exposition as might enable the European reader to form an opinion of what that system may once have been.
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Such was the attempt of Rám Ráz.∗ How far he has been successful the public must decide. Men,† whose authority will, it is believed, be readily acknowledged, have spoken of his work in terms of the highest commendation; and if it shall appear that he has established the claim of his countrymen to the possession, in an eminent degree, of a knowledge in the art,—and this at a period when its principles were but little understood among Europeans, he will have accomplished a task which he fondly looked forward to with every confidence of success; and one, it is hoped, which cannot be uninteresting, or devoid of utility, to the followers and promoters of science in general.
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∗ It is painful to state, that ere the result of his labours has pased through the press, accounts from India have announced the decease of this most worthy member of the Royal Asiatic Society.
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† Messrs. William Wilkins, R. A., William Daniell, R. A., and Charles Cockerell, F. S. A.—(*Vide the Tenth Annual Report of the Royal Asiatic Society*, p. 29.)
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The present may not be an improper occasion, as the author of the accompanying essay is no more, to offer a few brief notices of his life. They are, however, merely such as the recollections of the writer to whom the subject of these notices was intimately known for several years, can supply, yet they may, perhaps, as a tribute to his memory, be received with indulgence.
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RÁM RÁZ was born at Tanjore, in the Carnatic, about the year 1790. He was small of stature, of a delicate frame, of a fair complexion for an Asiatic, and had a remarkably brilliant and piercing eye. On public occasions there was in his manner, though on the whole graceful and easy, a diffidence which might lead the cursory observer to undervalue his abilities; but by those to whom he was known in private, it was more justly attributed to innate modesty and humility. His name implies that he was of a superior caste; and he used to boast of being a collateral descendant of RÁM RÁJ, or RÁM RÁZ, the last of the kings of *Vijayanagar*; and as the name is often met with in the genealogy of those princes, it is not improbable that it may have thus descended to him.
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His parents, it would seem, were poor; and that he was partly indebted to fortuitous circumstances for the little education which he received when a boy; a portion of this, however, fortunately for him, consisted in learning to read and write the English language. He was first attached to one of the Native Regiments of Infantry, as a clerk, it is believed, to the Adjutant; and, subsequently, as *Vakíl*, or native agent to the regiment. While in these situations he prosecuted the study of the English language; and by acquiring a more grammatical knowledge of the several[^asterisk] vernacular dialects which he had been taught in early life, he added to a character for natural quickness of intellect and correctness of conduct, that of an accomplished interpreter. How long he remained in this situation, or whether leaving it at this period he obtained any other, is not known; but in the year 1815, we find him employed as a clerk in the office of the Military Auditor General. While in this employment a circumstance accidently brought him to the notice of the gentleman before mentioned. He had undertaken to translate from the Mahratta into the English language a code of Regulations drawn up by order of the late TIPPÚ SÚLTÁN, the sovereign of *Mysór*, for the guidance of his revenue officers. Such a work, it will be readily conceived, could not form a part of his duties as clerk in a military audit office, and it must therefore have been a voluntary task.
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Cont * *Ráj* or *Rája*, according to the Sanscrit pronunciation: *Ráz* or *Ráza*, according to the pronunciation of the same term in the vernacular languages of the South of India.
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His translation was in every respect so correct, and the notes and illustrations accompanying it exhibited so eminent a degree of knowledge in the several languages from which the terms and phrases used in the original were generally borrowed, as well as of the Mahratta and English, and at the same time displayed so much talent in the elucidation of the various parts of the subject
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[^asterisk]: It is not uncommon that in the same town or village two, three, or more vernacular languages will equally prevail; and that boys are taught, though very imperfectly, to read and write in the whole of them.
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by comparison and by contrast with the English system of revenue, as at that period to give rise to considerable doubt of its being the unassisted performance of a *Hindú*. Satisfied that it was so, this gentleman, his early patron, who besides the several offices which he held in the civil department of the Madras Government, was also Senior Member of the College of Fort St. George, gladly availed himself of so fair an opportunity to countenance and encourage talents and conduct such as he observed in our author; and procured for him, first, the appointment of Head of the College Office, and afterwards that of Head English Master to the native classes of that institution.
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It was while in the latter situation that he was, for upwards of five years, intimately known to the writer of these remarks, who, shortly before his quitting India, had the satisfaction of recommending him to the First Commissioner in *Mysór*, by which means he was placed in a sphere of action where talents such as his could not long remain unknown, and which soon raised him to the responsible and highly honourable post of Judge and Magistrate.
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By a regular course of private study while at Madras, he had added to his other accomplishments, not only a knowledge of the Sanscrit language, but also of algebra, geometry, the higher branches of mathematics, and of geography and astronomy; and at one time he had classes in these branches of science, the scholars of which were an honour to his industry and talents; by many of whom his assiduity, ability, and zeal, will be long held in grateful remembrance.
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Of his death no particular accounts have yet been received. It is said that the climate of *Mysór* was not congenial to him;
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and perhaps the duties of his situation there were too arduous for his weakly frame. He had no family, but he had adopted a daughter whom, together with his widow, an aged mother, and a brother who was in some mercantile profession at Madras, he has, it is supposed, left to enjoy the little wealth which his frugality, rather than any adequate return actually awarded to his merits, enabled him to realise. But however this may have been, his loss as a man of talents and of science, as well as a highly valuable servant of the British Government, is deeply to be regretted.
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The writer¹ of these remarks has the pleasure to announce that he expects shortly to receive from the friends of the deceased, ample materials whence a full and authentic view of the author's life may be drawn, should such a record be thought sufficiently interesting to the public, to induce its acceptance by the Royal Asiatic Society.
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¹ * After the volume was sent to press, he received from the widow of the deceased a letter, from which the following is an extract:
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*To Captain* Harkness.
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"Bangalore, East-Indies, 22d May 1833
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\* \* \* \*
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"As my late husband in his lifetime had mentioned to me the existence of a friendship between yourself and him, and which, by letters found after his decease, I feel convinced existed in your mind towards him, I have taken the liberty to address you on the subject of my misfortune, not only in the loss of one so dear, so amiable, but also in being subjected to the mercenary and avaricious views of his brother.
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"I beg to call to your remembrance the number of years my late husband was in the Honourable Company's service; first, as Vakeel to the Second Battalion of the
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whom our ancient legislators have ranked amongst the lower orders of society. This class, perhaps, jealous of the Bráhmans, whose sacerdotal authority they have always opposed with a spirit of independence, or more naturally, apprehensive of competition in their trade, took particular care to conceal the sacred volumes which have descended to them, from the rest of the people; but as they have on their own part been long denied the benefit of Sanskrit literature, these treatises could be but of little use to themselves; and the consequence has been, that while the practical part of the science continued to be followed up amongst them as a kind of inheritance from generation to generation, the theory became gradually lost to the whole nation, if not to the whole world. Even the few scattered fragments which have escaped the hand which either jealousy or the fear of competition has raised to conceal or rather destroy the science, are now quite unavailable to those who kept them to themselves and to the priests The former being compelled to refer to the latter for the interpretation of the superior dialect, and the latter to seek from the former for definitions of technical terms, which neither the one nor the other seem to have been able to explain or understand accurately. This circumstance, more than any other, has cost me considerable time and expense, without any adequate advantage. Our best dictionaries, at least the best that I have been able to procure, do not contain a single architectural term, and the best of our workmen have been so long disused to their own ancient style of building durable public edifices, that it is not to be wondered at they should now ascribe their ignorance of the art as revealed from heaven to the want of encouragement, which appears indeed to have ceased on the decline of native rule. Such is the state of knowledge among those to whom we could look for any illustration respecting an art, the study of which has been so long neglected in this country, and the few manuscripts too, which have escaped the corroding hand of time inevitably contain numerous errors and defects which it requires no small labour and time to correct and supply.
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"These difficulties, combined with want of time on my own part to surmount them, discouraged me for a long while, and it is but lately I commenced to translate and to take down extracts and notes of some parts which I have been enabled to make out. There still remains a great deal to be done; nevertheless, great reason have I to think that what I have already executed will facilitate my future progress. At all events, if it please heaven, I hope to be able to send you at least a part of the work by an early opportunity: and though I cannot promise that my performance will be such as to meet with the approbation of the Royal Asiatic Society, yet I trust it may not prove altogether unacceptable to that learned body of men, inasmuch as it may tend to draw attention to this important subject, connected as it is with the state of arts and sciences in India in early days.
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“The subject itself is curious, and highly deserving the attention of the antiquarian and the philosopher. A correct account and accurate elucidation of the art of building practised by the *Hindús*, must throw considerable light on the early progress of architecture in general. Some of the western authors have traced a certain resemblance in the leading features of the buildings in Egypt and India, and have thence concluded that there has very early been a communication of architectural knowledge between the two countries. But it is not altogether improbable that this resemblance may be merely owing to accident; inasmuch as in architecture as well as in every other art indispensably necessary to the comfort of mankind, two or more nations may possess something in common, without having any intercourse with each other, for the wants felt by man being the same, it is not surprising that the remedies resorted to for supplying them should be also similar or nearly so. If, on the other hand, however, both these countries had actually any communication in early ages, it is hard to determine which of them may have been indebted to the other. The western writers on antiquities have not placed this matter beyond a doubt. And for my own part, I will not venture to affirm any thing with certainty, until I have collected sufficient information to form an opinion as to this alleged affinity in the architecture of Egypt and India. I humbly presume, therefore, that until the *Silpa Sástra* of the *Hindús* is correctly illustrated and laid before the public, the question as to whether the art owes its origin to the one or the other of the two countries must remain problematical.
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“Whilst the subject of my present research opens upon me such a wide field of delightful prospect notwithstanding the difficulties I already anticipated, I cannot but acknowledge, with painful sensations, my own incompetency for the task which your kindness has assigned to me, and regret most sincerely that it has not fallen into abler hands. Diligence and fidelity, however, in the execution of the work entrusted to me shall not be wanting on my part; but the result of my labours can be only commensurate to the ability I possess compared with the difficulty of the subject.
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“I hope what I have already said will give you some notion of the nature of the undertaking in which I am engaged, and of the little progress which I have hitherto been enabled to make in consequence of unavoidable delays arising partly from the difficulty of the subject, and partly from the want of leisure. You are too well acquainted
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with my trifling acquirements to entertain high expectations in the performance of the task assigned to me. I only propose to write a short but comprehensive Essay on Indian Architecture from the materials I may be able to collect; to which I shall perhaps add some descriptions of a few temples and porticoes, principally taken from the Carnatic, with corresponding designs
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“Wishing you and your family every success and prosperity in life,
> “I remain,
>> “Sir,
>>> “Your most obedient and faithful servant,
>>>> (Signed) “RÁM RÁZ.”
Linked texts (2)
- Vijayanagara
- Viśvakarmaśilpa — Viśvakarman, Sanskrit