A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c8.48

c8.48

All authors who treat of Indian architecture notice, and are embarrassed by the fact, that each style when it first comes to our knowledge is full-grown and complete. The earliest specimens betray no signs of tentative effort, and in no case is it possible to trace the progressive evolution of a given style from rude beginnings. The extensive destruction of ancient monuments, especially those built of brick, no doubt supplies a partial, though not adequate, explanation. I am convinced that the more fundamental explanation is to be found in the assumption that all the Indian styles are derived from prototypes constructed in timber, bamboos, and other perishable materials. We have seen how easily the Indian curvilinear roofs and the *stūpa* railings can be accounted for in this way, and by the extension of the theory an adequate reason for the non-existence of the missing links in the chain of architectural evolution is supplied. In the essay previously cited, Mr. Simpson has quoted from the ancient work entitled the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* (*S.B.E.*, vols. xii, xxvi) a long description of an early Brahmanical temple as constructed some five or six or seven hundred years before the Christian era. That temple consisted simply of two sheds, which were ‘merely formed of posts and beams, covered with reeds and mats, and could only be described as belonging to the “thatch period” in architecture’. From such an edifice to the temples of Mount Ābū and Tanjore the distance is great, but there seems to be little reason to doubt that the intervening stages were worked out for the most part by experiments with evanescent materials. Brick, the intermediate stage between the ‘thatch period’ and the ‘stone period’, offers such a ready prey to the spoiler that it may be reckoned as only ‘semi-permanent’ material.² Whatever be the validity of this theory, we must take the styles ready-made as we find them, and briefly consider their several peculiarities, so far as may be necessary for the intelligent appreciation of the ancillary fine arts, which form the main subject of this work.