Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c12.5

c12.5

In architecture the palm must be given to the ornate temples erected by the Hoysalas, or during the period of their ascendancy, in the style which has been named Chalukyan. Regarding these the same authority remarks as follows: "The artistic combination of horizontal with vertical lines, and the play of outline and of light and shade far surpass anything in Gothic art. The effects are just what mediæval architects were often aiming at, but which they never attained so perfectly as was done at Halebīd." Of the temples there, he says: "The great temple (the Hoysalēśvara), had it been completed, is one of the buildings on which the advocate of Hindu architecture would desire to take his stand. . . . And if carried out with the richness of detail exhibited in the Kēdārēśvara, would have made up a whole which it would be difficult to rival anywhere. . . . If it were possible to illustrate this little temple (the Kēdārēśvara) in anything like completeness, there is probably nothing in India which would convey a better idea of what its architects were capable of accomplishing. . . . By a curious coincidence it was contemporaneous with the English cathedrals of Lincoln, Salisbury, and Wells, or the great French churches at Amiens, Rheims, and Chartres, of course without any communication. But it is worthy of remark that the great architectural age in India should have been the thirteenth century, which witnessed such a wonderful development of a kindred style (meaning the Gothic) in Europe.”