The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.10

v1.c33.10

Notwithstanding the wide extent and long duration of Vedic civilisation in Northern India, there is but one group of monuments now existing to which there is any warrant for assigning a Vedic origin. These are the well-known mounds at Lauriyā Nandangaṛh in Bihār, which were opened a few years ago by the late Dr Bloch and identified by him with the burial mounds (*çmaçāna*) described in Vedic ritual. Two of these proved to be composed of horizontal layers of clay alternating with straw and leaves, with a post (*sthūṇā*) of sāl wood standing erect in the centre, above which was a deposit of human bones and charcoal accompanied by a small gold leaf. The latter (Plate XI, 21) bore impressed upon it in crude outline the figure of a female, which has been interpreted as the Earth Goddess referred to in the Vedic burial hymn, but both this interpretation and the date (seventh or eighth century B.C.) hazarded by the explorer for these mounds must be regarded as tentative only. Of actual structures anterior to the Maurya epoch the only examples, as already remarked, known to have survived until the present day, are the walls and remains of dwellings in the old city of Rājagṛiha, all built of rough cyclopean masonry. This city was reputed in antiquity to have been forsaken during the reign of king Bimbisāra, the contemporary of Buddha, who removed the capital to New Rājagṛiha, but as to how long the walls or houses had then been standing, tradition is silent. Such structures, built of durable materials, were certainly the rare exception rather than the rule in ancient India, and were probably essayed only in localities where stones suitable for such masonry were ready to hand. In primitive India, as among the poorer classes of to-day, the materials most commonly in use were mud or mud bricks, bamboo canes, and other kinds of wood. The simplest kinds of dwellings were constructed of screens of bamboo inwoven with palm branches or the like, the roofs being either flat or arched. In the latter case, the bamboos were lashed together at the apex and tied in near the lower end, thus forming a singularly strong framework of curvilinear form, while the walls were strengthened to resist the outward thrust. In other cases, the walls were constructed of unbaked brick or mud, and the latter material was also used as a covering for the flat roofs or for plastering the screens of the walls on the ‘wattle and daub’ principle. At a later date cut timbers came to be used in the more pretentious dwellings, and afforded opportunities for the development of that exuberant surface decoration in which the genius of India has always excelled.