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A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c21: Chapter XVI. Art and Architecture

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c21

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English

Chapter XVI. Art and Architecture

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Caityas and vihāras of the north-western Deccan—Jaina caves of Orissa—Buddhist sanctuaries in the lower Godāvari and Krishna—rock-architecture of the western Deccan (fifth century)—paintings—temples at Aihole—rock-cut halls at Bādāmi—temples at Pattadakal—last phase of rock-architecture in the western Deccan. Pallava rock-architecture—structural temples—early Chola temples—age of Rājarāja—Tiruvāliśvaram—the Great Temple of Tanjore—Gangaikondaśolapuram—Chola sculptures and bronzes—Pāndyan architecture—gōpuras—mandapas—Jaina monuments. Chālukya temples of the western Deccan—Hoysala architecture and sculpture. Architecture of Orissa—Mukhalingam—Bhuvaneśvar—Puri—Konarak. ‘Deccani’ temples (eleventh and thirteenth centuries)—Hemadpanti style. Age of Vijayanagar—pillared mandapas—Vitthala and Hazāra Rāma temples—secular buildings—Madura style. Bāhmanī architecture, military and civil—its influence on Hindu architecture.

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THIS brief sketch of the architecture and art of South India is more historical than aesthetic; aesthetic appreciation is a matter of individual taste, and the role of the art critic is different from that of the student of its history. Again, though the continuity in the evolution of art forms and the mutual influences of the different schools that flourished in different localities and ages will be taken account of in a general way, no attempt can be made here to study such questions in any detail. Our aim must be to give a general view of the salient features of the different schools and their productions in the light of the most recent studies on the subject.

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The earliest monuments that call for notice are the caityas and vihāras of the north-western Deccan. These are often called ‘caves’ and ‘cave-temples’; such names are misleading when applied to these wonderful excavations, many of which are large, well-planned temples and monasteries skilfully chiselled out of the solid rock with infinite forethought and patience. The term ‘rock-architecture’ has been suggested as more adequate by Percy Brown (to whose great work on Indian Architecture this account is much indebted).

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Such work involved no great problems of constructional engineering, and is best regarded as a branch of sculpture, though ‘on a grand and magnificent scale’. The caitya was primarily a temple or place of worship, and was so called because in early Buddhism the object of worship was generally a *stūpa* (*caitya*); the *vihāra* was a monastery. In Hinayāna Buddhism the Buddha was never represented in sculptured form, but his presence was indicated by a throne, a footstool, cushions and other symbols. The Buddha image came into use in later Mahāyāna Buddhism and then it was introduced into some of the early *caityas* as at Kanheri and Nasik. The Hinayāna rock-cut monasteries and shrines are all situated in Bombay State within a radius of two hundred miles round Nasik. The *caitya* was generally ‘a large vaulted hall having an apsidal end and divided longitudinally by two colonnades into a broad nave and two aisles. In the apse stood the *stūpa*, also carved out of the natural rock.’ Circumambulation of the *stūpa* took place along the aisles and the apse, while the congregation assembled in the nave. The *vihāra* consisted of a ‘central hall entered by a doorway’ from a verandah in front and surrounded by square cells cut further into the rock, each serving as the abode of a monk. Architecturally the *caityas* are more notable than the *vihāras*. In both there was a close imitation of the wooden structures which were the originals of their designs; even in rock-cut buildings, much woodwork was put into both the façade and interior, so used were the early builders to wood before they started building in stone. But rock-architecture as it comes before us is fully matured, and the stages, if any, of its evolution are no longer traceable.

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There are eight *caitya* halls of the second and first century B.C. and in their probable order of execution they are ‘Bhāja, Kondane, Pitālkhora, Ajanta (No. 10), Bedsa, Ajanta (No. 9), Nasik and Karle’, the first four belonging to the second century and the remainder to the first. Two *caitya* halls at Junnar are ‘of the same type and date as that at Nasik’. The series may be said to close with the *caitya* at Kanheri (second century A.D.). In the earlier examples the pillars of the colonnades are copies of plain wooden posts, with an octagonal section and without capital or base, and they generally slope towards the interior; in later examples the inward slant disappears and the columns become more elaborate, with bases and capitals, and evolve into an ‘order’. The horseshoe archway above the entrance which dominates the façade also undergoes a corresponding evolution. Bedsa and Karle are the finest examples of this early *caityas*, and the façade as well as the column is marked by many innovations. At Bedsa the base of the column is vase-shaped and its capital is surmounted by a group of figures and animals ‘each of which consists of a male and female figure lightly clad but with heavy ornaments seated astride kneeling animals, on the one side horses, and on the other elephants. These groups are exceptionally vivid and spirited examples of rock sculpture, evidently the work of a master craftsman in this medium.’ The hall is 45½ feet long and 21 feet wide. Karle (Pl. I), the largest and best of the series, is 124 feet long, 46½ feet wide and 45 feet high. Here the façade consists of two stages, the lower wall pierced by three doorways and an upper gallery over which rises the enormous horseshoe window. The pillars of the colonnade have capitals more elaborate than at Bedsa, and they have the effect of a frieze and cornice. From them rise the wooden ribs attached to the domed stone of the roof. The spaces between the doorways in the lower stage of the façade are each decorated with sculptures of two human figures, very massive and grandly executed. ‘The setting back of the entrance into the face of the rock forms an outer porch, the sides of which are sculptured in architectural façades of several storeys, the lowest supported by huge elephants, the second decorated with sculptured figures’ like those of the lower stage of the façade. The entrance was preceded by a wooden antechamber or porch, and farther outside stands one of the two original monolithic *dhvajastambhas* with a capital of four lions which once supported a wheel. The arrangements carefully designed to deflect the glaring sunshine streaming through the horseshoe window of the façade have received high praise from Percy Brown who observes: ‘There are few lighting effects more solemnly beautiful than the soft luminous atmosphere diffused in this manner through the sun-window at Karle’. The *caitya* at Kanheri is ‘a decadent copy of that at Karle, but only about two-thirds its size’.

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Plate I KARLE : CHAITYA MAIN HALL

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AMARAVATI : THE MIRACLE OF THE INFURIATED ELEPHANT

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Plate III AJANTA : CAVE 19

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Plate IV a AIHOLE : DURGA TEMPLE FROM THE S.W.

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Plate V ELLORA : KAILASA TEMPLE (GENERAL VIEW)

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Plate IV b ELEPHANTA : TRIMURTI

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Plate VI a ELLORA : DUMARLENA

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Plate VI b ELLORA : KAILASA TEMPLE (DETAIL OF PLINTH)

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Plate VII MAMALLAPURAM : THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES

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Plate VIII a MAMALLAPURAM : THE SHORE TEMPLE

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Plate VIII b KANCHIPURAM : KAILASANATHA TEMPLE

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Plate IX TANJORE : GREAT TEMPLE (GENERAL VIEW)

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Plate VIII b KANCHIPURAM : VAIKUNTHAPERUMAL

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DANCING SIVA, NATARAJA (X CENTURY)

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Plate XI LAKSHMI

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HALEBID : HOYSALESVARA TEMPLE WALL DETAILS

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Plate XIII SOMANATHAPUR : KESAVA TEMPLE WALL DETAILS

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BHUVANESVAR : LINGARAJA TEMPLE

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Plate XV KONARAK : ROCK ELEPHANT

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Plate XVII MADURA : MINAKSHI TEMPLE

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DAULATABAD FORT

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BIDAR : MADRASA OF MAHMUD GAWAN

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The *vihāras* are monastic houses excavated near the *caityas* in secluded places where the monks found freedom to pursue their religious observances without distraction. From a small beginning in course of time they developed a full complement of rooms: a dormitory, a common room, a refectory, and so on, besides cells for individual monks. Ajanta (No. 12) is ‘a simple but typical example’ of an early single-storeyed *vihāra*. Another *vihāra* of the same type is that to the left of the *caitya* at Kondane. At Nasik this type of *vihāra* is seen ‘in its most decorative form . . . in a series of three examples’, all of the first century A.D., viz. Nahapāna (No. 8), Gautamiputra and Śriyajña, so-called from their inscriptions. ‘All have columned porticos’ but no pillars in their large central halls, from which open the individual cells generally containing stone beds.

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Contemporary with these monasteries in the Western Ghats, another group—not Buddhist but Jaina—was excavated near Cuttack in Orissa. These rock-cut chambers are all located in two hills known as Khaṇḍagiri and Udayagiri, and were made within the century and a half preceding the Christian era. There are in all some thirty-five excavations but only half the number are at all important, only one of these being on Khaṇḍagiri. There was apparently no regular plan and they were cut in convenient places and connected by paths. The workmanship is clumsy and crude, but that was perhaps at least in part due to the rough texture of the sandstone. Locally, these monasteries are known as *gumphas*, and each is distinguished by some prefix, like Hāthi (elephant). There are many unidentified sculptured scenes from Jaina legends in the more important *gumphas*. The style of the sculptures is at once original and vigorous. The Rāni and Gaṇeśa *gumphas* are both two-storeyed; and the courtyard of the Rāni, there is good reason to think, constituted an open-air theatre. In it are the remains of channels for the distribution of water throughout the structure. In the Gaṇeśa *gumpha* the entrance steps are flanked with figures of elephants, the first appearance of the sculptured-animal motif at the entrance to a rock-cut hall which was developed with such wonderful effect later at Ellora and Elephanta (where, however, the elephants are replaced by lions).

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Remains of extensive Buddhist sanctuaries, rock-cut and structural, are found on many sites in the lower reaches of the Krishna and Godāvari rivers. Nearly all of them bear traces of an early foundation, for in this region Buddhist art found a refuge under the patronage of the Andhras and their successors and had a more or less continuous evolution from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 400. The monuments of this region form a precious link between the ancient schools of Barhut and Sānchi and medieval Hindu art. Rock-cut architecture is found in two sites in Andhra state, one at Guṇṭupalli (Krishna district), the other on the Sankaram hills (Vizagapatam district). The small circular *caitya* of Guṇṭupalli (200 B.C.), 18 feet in diameter, and its ribbed domical roof are obvious imitations of a primitive hut, and the whole structure, perhaps, contains the clue to the beginnings of the more elaborate caitya hall. There are, besides, two vihāras, one large and the other small, ruins of a brick-built caitya hall, and several stūpas of various sizes, rock-cut and structural. There is no regular plan and the work is rather coarse. The remains on the Sankaram hills are perhaps later—about A.D. 350. A number of monolithic stūpas and rock-cut chambers scattered in an irregular way to suit the configuration of the hilltop and the foundations of an extensive structural monastery are the principal remains. Some of the monolithic stūpas here are the largest of their kind, one being 65 feet in diameter at the base. Here, as at Guṇṭupalli, the work is rather crude and unskilled.

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The technical skill and artistic excellence of the Andhra craftsman are best seen in the structural monuments, particularly the stūpas distributed over an area of 75 miles all round Ellore. The most notable of them were at Goli, Jaggeyapeta, Bhaṭṭiprōlu, Ghaṇṭśāla, Amarāvati and Nāgārjunikonda. As examples of Buddhist architecture and sculpture they had few equals at the beginning of the Christian era. Most of them had an exterior encasement of white marble, richly carved in low relief, and this gave them an imposing appearance. In the early examples, as at Bhaṭṭiprōlu, the stūpa was built solid, but later strength and economy of material were secured by means of cross-walls and other walls radiating towards the circumference like the spokes of a wheel’. The bricks themselves were of enormous size, 24" × 18" × 4". At first, the stūpa was a low hemispherical mound, as at Sānchi, but in later examples the dome is raised by being set on a lofty plinth. The marble casing was never applied over the whole surface of the brick core, but only to its lower portion, the remainder being plastered and painted white. At the four cardinal points there were rectangular projections from the plinth which accommodated steps leading to the procession-path above the plinth. Above each of these projections stood five slender pillars which may have symbolized the five Dhyānibuddhas and were called āryaka kambhas (‘worshipful columns’). ‘As an ornamental attribution to the domical shape of the stūpa, this projection with its graceful pillars was an admirable device and gives an artistic distinction to the southern type.’

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The largest of all these stūpas, that of Amarāvati, had its beginning about 200 B.C., but was completely reconstructed between A.D. 150 and 200. The dome was 162 feet across at the base and the concentric railing outside enclosed the pradakshiṇa path 15 feet wide. The height of the dome must have been from 90 to 100 feet. Some 20 feet above the ground there was a higher processional path with the usual offsets and the āryaka pillars. There was a balustrade about 8 feet high round the terraced path and it was richly carved on the inner sides. All that remains now of this stupendous monument are the sculptural slabs and parts of the railing preserved in museums.

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The sculptures of Amarāvati, like those from several other stūpas in the neighbourhood, depict incidents in the life of the Buddha and scenes of worship, and contain many fine ornamental motifs. The figures of women and animals are in the Sānchi tradition and display a vigorous and supple realism, characteristic of all Indian sculpture, particularly of animals, from the days of Aśoka to the age of the Pallava sculptures at Māmallapuram. In the scenes depicting life in the women's quarters, there is an innocent delight in the nude and a refined sensuality with marked freshness. The Bodhisattvas and the Buddha are represented actually and not by mere symbols, and good reason has been shown to admit the presence of Roman influences in the art of Amarāvati, which foreshadows that of Aihole and Māmallapuram. This side of Amarāvati art leaves naturalism behind and develops an idealism of the highest order, ‘a new canon of beauty and tranquillity’, ‘the aesthetic ideal of India’. ‘The school of Amarāvati,’ says Grousset, ‘can show many a scene which is a veritable picture in stone, perfect in its composition, by some very great, though unknown, artist.’ In the medallion (Madras Museum) depicting the taming of the elephant (Pl. II), for instance, the confusion caused by the mad beast contrasts remarkably with the calm after it is tamed by the power of Buddha's kindliness. In the various stories illustrated ‘there are representations of walled cities, palace-buildings, toraṇas and stūpas; and more than one of the slabs portrays the stūpa of Amarāvati itself as it must have appeared in the height of its glory’.

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At Tēr in the Sholapur district and Chezārla in the Krishna district are found Buddhist caitya halls built in brick, perhaps in the fifth century A.D., and surviving to this day because they were appropriated to brahminical uses after the decline of Buddhism. We refer to the Trivikrama temple at Tēr and the Kapoteśvara temple at Chezārla. These two small buildings, each not more than 30 feet long, are now the only means of judging the external appearance of the Buddhist structural temples as the rock-cut caityas have no exteriors except their façades.

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About the middle of the fifth century there was a revival of rock-architecture in the western Deccan under the stimulus of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The chief centres of this art were Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad, not to speak of some places of lesser importance in the same region. The caitya in its essential features remained the same as before except for the introduction of Buddha images, sometimes of colossal proportions. The vihāra, however, undergoes much alteration and the innermost range of cells which served originally as dormitories for monks now became sanctuaries containing images of the Buddha. And the vihāra thus became a place of worship as well as of residence.

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The monastic retreats of Ajanta extend in a ‘sickle-shaped curve along the face of the cliff for over a third of a mile, and overhanging the waters of a pretty stream, cascading through the ravine below’. Here are twenty-eight halls of various sizes and they have been numbered in order from west to east. Two caityas and three vihāras (Nos. 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13) had come into existence in the earlier Hinayāna period under the Andhras (200 B.C.-A.D. 200); the others were added in the two centuries that followed A.D. 450. In these later examples the imitation of wooden construction is discarded, and a distinct advance made in the handling of the rock-medium. The walls and the ceilings of these halls were covered with a large number of mural frescoes which have survived in some of them almost intact.

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The two vihāras (Nos. 16 and 17) made under the Vākāṭakas (about A.D. 500) are pillared halls (with the usual cells and shrines in the back walls) containing Buddhas seated in ‘European fashion’ (pralamba pāda). In the paintings of No. 16, there is a remarkable combination of figures with architectural motifs, while a striking narrative style marks the scenes of the life of the Buddha depicted in No. 17. No. 19 (Pl. III), with its highly embellished façade and its numerous Buddhas, marking a great development of Mahāyāna sculpture, may be dated about 550, thus forming a link between the earlier group and that of the seventh century. The pillars within this *caitya* are fluted columns richly ornamented. The capitals are of the pot and foliage variety. The chief painting here is the ‘Return to Kapilavastu’. Nos. 1-5 and 21-6 were the last group to come into existence (c. 600-50). No. 1 contains the painting of the beautiful ‘Bodhisattva with blue lotus’ and other famous frescoes including the ‘Śibi-Jātaka’ and ‘Banquet of Persians’, really a representation of the Buddhist god Pañcika. The painters of Ajanta ‘had a complete command of posture. Their knowledge of the types and positions, gestures and beauties of hands is amazing. Many racial types are rendered; the features are often elaborately studied and of high-breeding, and one might call it stylistic-breeding. In some pictures considerable impetus of movement of different kinds is well suggested. Some of the schemes of colour composition are most remarkable and interesting and there is great variety.’ A critic observes: ‘It is impossible for anyone who has not seen them with their own eyes to realize how great and solid the paintings in the caves are; how wonderful in their simplicity and religious fervour.’ But the simplicity was the result of a very conscious art-tradition of long standing and, as Grousset has said, ‘every one of the chief subjects of the Ajanta frescoes is worthy of separate analysis’. The Ajanta style of painting is seen contemporaneously at Sigiriya in Ceylon and some centuries later in the paintings of a Jaina cave at Sittannavāśal (Pudukkoṭṭai), in the cave-temple at Tirumalaipuram (Tinnevelly district), and on the inner walls of the *garbhagriha* of the Great Temple at Tanjore.

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The rock-architecture of Ellora was begun by the Buddhists from 450 to 650, with twelve rock-cut halls that fall into two sub-groups, one slightly later than the other and each comprising a prayer-hall with monasteries attached to it. The later group contains two monasteries which are the only examples in three storeys, rising to a height of nearly 50 feet with wide courtyards in front. The technique of rock-architecture reached its culmination in some of these *vihāras* in which ‘lines are straighter, angles more correct, and surfaces more true than in any other examples’. At Aurangabad there are three groups of Buddhist excavations in a hill about 3 miles north of the city. One of them includes a *caitya* and four *vihāras*, another has four *vihāras*, and the third comprises three unimportant caves. They all belong to the sixth and seventh centuries. Some of the sculptures of deities and devotees, male and female, in these *vihāras* are remarkable for their massive proportions and bold relief and for their life-like presentation of the people of the period, their garments, head-dresses and ornaments.

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The beginnings of Hindu temple architecture in South India are best traced in the temple-complex at Aihole and its neighbourhood dating from A.D. 450 to 650. Aihole is a town of temples and contains no fewer than seventy structures. The work started there was continued in the neighbouring towns of Bādāmi and Pattadakal. The temple at Aihole known as Ladh Khān, usually assigned to about 450, is a low flat-roofed building 50 feet square, with a small square cella and a porch set on the roof at a later date and forming an independent shrine of the Sun. Of the main temple three sides are completely enclosed by walls, two of which carry stone windows perforated in a variety of beautiful designs. On the fourth side, which forms the eastern front, there is an open porch on the pillars of which are figures of the river-goddesses. The interior is a pillared hall containing ‘two square groups of columns one within the other’. A large *nandi* fills the central bay, and the cella at the farther end is not a separate chamber leading off from the main hall, as one would expect, but built within it against the back wall. The entire disposition is totally inadequate for the purposes of a temple, and Percy Brown suggests that it was just a mote-hall converted into a temple. In the pilasters at the exterior angles of the building may be traced the beginnings of the ‘Dravidian order’ with the tapering upper end of the column and its ‘cushion capital with an expanded floral abacus supporting the bracket’. The construction of the roof is also peculiar as it consists of large flat slabs held together by long narrow stones covering the entire length of the joints and fitting into grooves cut in the slabs.

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Very different from Ladh Khān is the Durgā temple (Pl. IVa), which was another experiment seeking to adapt the Buddhist *caitya* to a brahminical temple. This temple, perhaps of the sixth century, is an apsidal structure (60 feet by 36 feet) with a large portico 24 feet deep on its eastern front making its entire length 84 feet. The temple stands on a high plinth with many mouldings. The top of its flat roof is 30 feet from the ground. A *śikhara* rises above the *garbhagriha* in the apse and there is a verandah roofed with sloping slabs carried on massive square columns with heavy brackets and this forms the *pradakshiṇa* path.

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The śikhara or pyramidal tower over the sanctum is generally curvilinear in shape in Northern India, but in the far South it rises by square terraces of diminishing size. In the Deccan both styles were used. There was even a tendency, at times, to combine the features of the two styles. The śikhara of the Durgā temple, perhaps a later addition, is of the Northern variety.

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Another temple very similar to the Durgā temple is the smaller and simpler Huccimalli-guḍi which contains one new feature, namely a vestibule or antarāla between the cella and the main hall. One of the last temples to be built at Aihole was the Jaina temple of Meguti (634), which shows considerable progress in the erection of structural temples. It is unfinished and its shrine is detached from the back wall. Of nearly the same date is the small finely-proportioned and magnificently located Mālagitti Śivālaya at Bādāmi.

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A group of four pillared rock-cut halls at Bādāmi, three of them Hindu and one Jaina, are all of the same type, each comprising ‘a pillared verandah, a columned hall, and a small square cella cut deep into the rock’. One of these (No. 3) is a Vaishnava cave exactly dated 578, and contains fine reliefs of Vishnu seated on Ananta and a Narasimha, both in the verandah. The workmanship in these caves is marked by a high degree of technical excellence. One noteworthy feature is the running frieze of gaṇas in various amusing postures carved in relief on each plinth. The front of these caves is otherwise unassuming but the interior is treated with great skill and care in every detail.

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The next stage in the development of Chālukyan art is marked by the temples at Pattadakal, about ten miles from Bādāmi. There are ten temples here, four in the Northern style and six in the Southern. The Pāpanātha temple (c. 680) among the former, and Sangameśvar (c. 725) and Virūpāksha (c. 740) among the latter, are the most notable. The temple of Pāpanātha in its plan and elevation alike exhibits shortcomings due to uncertainty regarding the correct relation of the different parts of the temple structure to one another. The temple is 90 feet long and too low for its length, its tower in true Northern style is too small and stunted, and the antarāla too big—almost a supplementary hall. The outer walls carry a close and monotonous repetition of canopied niches representing a shrine. This temple was perhaps one of the first attempts to combine Northern and Southern features in one structure, and was not quite successful.

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The vastly improved design and execution of the Virūpāksha temple, built by one of Vikramāditya II's queens, was most likely due to workmen brought from Kāñchipuram, and to their direct imitation of the Kailāsanātha temple which had come into existence in the Pallava capital some decades earlier. ‘There is a bold beauty,’ says Brown, ‘in the appearance of the Virūpāksha temple as a whole, which is best seen in the exterior. It is a comprehensive scheme as it consists not only of the central structure, but of a detached nandi pavilion in front, and it is contained within a walled enclosure entered by an appropriate gateway.’ It measures 120 feet from the front of the porch to the back of the shrine, and the studied grouping of its parts produces a very pleasant total effect. The heaviness of the stonework is relieved by an increase in the amount and quality of the sculpture. The main shrine, distinct from the maṇḍapa, has a pradakshiṇa path. The pillared maṇḍapa has thick walls with perforated stone windows. The square śikhara rises in clearly defined storeys each of considerable elevation. The external wall surface is divided by pilasters into well spaced ornamental niches filled alternately with windows and sculptures. The sculptures include representations of Śiva, nāgas and nāginis, and scenes from the Rāmāyaṇa. To cite Brown once more: ‘The sculpture flows into the architecture in a continuous yet disciplined stream. . . . The Virūpāksha temple is one of those rare buildings of the past in which the spirit still lingers of the men who conceived it and wrought it with their hands.’ The neighbouring Sangameśvara temple, built some years earlier, is very much in the same style but has an open maṇḍapa.

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Progress in the erection of structural temples did not mean the cessation of rock-architecture, which continued to flourish to the end of the ninth century. Its final manifestation occurred in three localities, namely: Ellora, already in the occupation of Buddhists for over 200 years; the islands of Elephanta and Salsette near Bombay; and the Pallava kingdom in the far South. At Ellora, the brahminical group (spread over half a mile along the west face of the hill) contains sixteen temples. They fall into three or four types. The simplest is still much under the influence of the Buddhist vihāra and is just a pillared portico with a cella beyond, like the Daśāvatār cave. The second type was similar to the first except for the passage round the cella, as in Rāvaṇa-kā-khai and Rāmeśvara. In the third type, the shrine stands in the centre of a cruciform hall having more than one entrance to it, as in the Dumarlena, the temple at Elephanta, and the Jogeśvara in Salsette. Lastly, the culmination of this architecture came in the monolithic temple of Kailāsa which stands in a class by itself and in which an entire structural temple in all its details is carved out of the living rock.

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Of the first type, the Daśāvatār is the largest and best example. A rock-cut entrance leads to an open courtyard of irregular shape with a detached shrine in its centre, probably a nandi-maṇḍapa. Beyond this lies the façade of the temple, in two storeys defined by two rows of square pillars one above the other. Each floor consists of a large pillared hall, the pillars being generally ‘simple square prisms with flat abacus capitals’. But the architecture was only meant to furnish the framework for the gigantic sculptures of Hindu mythology adorning the large sunk panels between pilasters at regular intervals on the surrounding walls. The sculptures on one side are mostly Vaishnava while those on the other are entirely Śaiva. One of the finest of these sculptures is that of the death of Hiraṇyakaśipu.

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Both the Rāvaṇa-kā-khai and the Rāmeśvara of the second type are simple in their plan. On each side of the entrance to the monolithic cella in the Rāvaṇa-kā-khai are carved a number of figures, including two dvārapālas; and within is a broken image of Durgā. On the walls of the pillared hall are recesses between pilasters carrying bold sculptures in high relief, Śaiva subjects on the south and Vaishnava on the north. The Rāmeśvara contains a lingam in the cella guarded by giant dvārapālas and is remarkable for the wealth of carving which adorns it in all its parts. The handling of the female figures in particular shows ‘a feeling for grace of pose and voluptuous beauty which is instinctive’.

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The Dumarlena (Pl. VIa), the only example of the third type at Ellora, has three separate entrances, one at the front and one on each wing. It is much larger than the previous types in its area and in the scale of its parts, and the light entering the temple from three different directions makes the interior much more impressive than in the other types. The central feature of the lena is a massive shrine guarded by huge dvārapālas by the sides of each of its four doorways, reached by flights of steps. ‘Leading up to this shrine and partly encircling it, is the main hall, a fine rectangular gallery 150 feet long and 50 feet wide divided into a nave and aisles by a colonnade of five pillars on each side, including the two forming the principal entrance.' Flanking the main hall are the transepts leading to the two lateral entrances, the width across the temple between the side-entrances being the same as its depth. Each of the three entrances is a wide pillared opening approached by a flight of steps guarded by sejant lions mounted on pedestals on either side. The pillars within the temple are of huge proportions, 15 feet high and 5 feet wide at the base, and carry ‘cushion’ capitals.

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The second example of this type on the island of Elephanta, near Bombay, resembles the Dumarlena in many ways but is somewhat smaller (130 feet by 129 feet). But the Elephanta temple is better than all others of its kind in its sculptures, particularly those on the back wall. There are three large square recesses separated by pilasters each bearing a huge dvārapāla. The panel on the left contains a representation of Ardhanārī, the hermaphrodite form of Śiva, while the corresponding one on the right contains figures of Śiva and Pārvati. In the central recess is the famous colossal three-headed bust (Pl. IVb) long called Trimūrti but in reality a representation of Maheśa. Of this magnificent sculpture Grousset remarks: ‘The three countenances of the one being are here harmonized without a trace of effort. There are few material representations of the divine principle at once as powerful and as well balanced as this in the art of the whole world. Nay, more, here we have undoubtedly the grandest representation of the pantheist God ever made by the hand of man. In a magnificently poetic outburst Rodin has celebrated “this full, pouting mouth, rich in sensuous expressions, these lips like a lake of pleasure fringed by the noble, palpitating nostrils”. Indeed never have the exuberant vigour of life, the tumult of universal joy expressing itself in ordered harmony, the pride of a power superior to any other, and the secret exaltation of the divinity immanent in all things found such serene expression.’

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A third example of this style, the temple of Jogeśvari (c. 800) in Salsette, is larger than the others, measuring 250 feet in a straight line, but has no other remarkable features about it.

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The last type, a complete monolithic structural temple, is represented by the unique example of Kailāsa at Ellora (Pl. V), excavated under Rāṣṭrakūṭa Krishna I. In its general plan, it bears a certain resemblance to the Virūpāksha temple at Pattadakal though it is more than twice its size. The temple resolves itself into four parts—its main body, the entrance gateway, a nandi shrine in between, and cloisters round the courtyard. Supplementary chambers, probably of a slightly later date, have been cut on the sides of the courtyard, that in the north wall called the Laṅkeśvara being a large, pillared hall. The entrance to the temple is on the west, and its main body measures roughly 150 feet by 100 feet, with projections at intervals throughout the entire height of the structure. The lofty and substantial plinth 25 feet in height is marked by heavy mouldings, above and below, while the central face is taken up by a magnificent series of elephants and lions seeming to support the structure (Pl. VIb). We cannot do better than quote the description from Percy Brown:

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'Standing high on this plinth,' says Brown, 'is the temple proper, approached by flights of steps leading to a pillared porch on its western side, and it is here that its designers rose to the greatest heights. There is no pronounced departure from the conventional combination of the maṇḍapa and the vimāna, but the manner in which various architectural elements, all definite and sharply outlined, such as cornices, pilasters, niches and porticos, have been assembled in an orderly and artistic manner to form a unified whole, is masterly. Then over all rises the stately tower in three tiers, with its prominently projecting gable-front, and surmounted by a shapely cupola, reaching up to a total height of 95 ft. But this is not all. Around the wide space of the platform at the base of the vimāna five subsidiary shrines have been fashioned out of the rock, each an elegant reproduction to a reduced scale of the main theme, to which they serve as a refrain. The interior consists of a pillared hall, from which a vestibule leads to the cella. This hall is a well-proportioned compartment measuring 70 feet by 62 feet having sixteen square piers in groups of four in each quarter, an arrangement which produces a cruciform central aisle with an effect of great dignity.'¹

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¹ *Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu)*, p. 87.

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Noteworthy in the remaining parts of the scheme are the two dhvajastambhas 51 feet high, one on each side of the nandi shrine, in themselves striking works of art, which mark an important stage in the evolution of the Southern pillar style. Lastly the sculptural decoration of the entire temple fits its parts admirably and forms the crowning glory of the monument. The vigorous representation of Rāvaṇa's attempt to uproot mount Kailāsa specially deserves to be noted.

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Also at Ellora are five Jaina excavations, all probably of the ninth century, but only three of them are notable. One is a copy of the Kailāsa, about a fourth of its size, and is known as Choṭā-Kailāsa. The other two—Indrasabhā and Jagannāthasabhā—are both two-storeyed. Indrasabhā is the larger and finer. The sculptures in its upper storey, as well as its frontage comprising three sides of a quadrangle elaborately carved into a façade with two storeys, are remarkable features.

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Remains of frescoes can be found on the ceiling of the porch on the second storey of the temple known as Rangmahal (probably because of the coloured decoration which once covered all its interior). The paintings are of two periods, the earlier contemporary with the excavation and therefore of the eighth century, the second much later. The later layer overlaps and partly conceals the earlier and is decidedly inferior. The earlier painting is clearly related to the Ajanta school. Vishnu and Lakshmī borne through the clouds by garuḍas of the human type, a rider upon a horned lion and pairs of gandharvas floating amongst the clouds can be identified among the paintings, besides representations of lotus pools with elephants, fish, and so on. The quality of the painting is already much removed from the style of Ajanta with features connecting it with the medieval style of Gujarat.

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In the far South, the Pallavas bridge the transition from rock-architecture to structural stone temples. Their architecture and sculpture constitute a most brilliant chapter in the history of South Indian art. Its first phase was entirely rock-cut and comprised two groups of monuments: one the pillared maṇḍapas, all of the reign of Mahendravarman I, who gloried in the construction of temples without the use of bricks, timber, metals or mortar; and the other, including similar but more elaborate maṇḍapas and monolithic temples known as rathas, all of the reign of Narasimhavarman I Mahāmalla and his immediate successors. The maṇḍapas of the Mahendra group are simple pillared halls with one or more cellas cut into the back wall. The main feature of the front façade is a row of pillars each 7 feet high, the shaft being square in section with a two-foot side above and below, and the corners chamfered in the middle third to give an octagonal section. A heavy bracket provides the capital. In the earliest examples (Maṇḍagappaṭṭu and Trichinopoly), there is no cornice above the pillars, but later a roll moulding was added as at Pallāvaram. In still later examples, e.g. Mogalrājapuram, the roll cornice carries at intervals a new ornament known as the kūḍu which is really a much reduced version of the Buddhist caitya window.

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The rock-cut temple of Anantaśayana at Undavalli (Guntur district) and the series at Bhairavakonda (North Arcot district) towards the end of Mahendra's reign attempt a departure from the very plain treatment of the earlier examples. Undavalli is probably an attempt to copy a Buddhist vihāra and consists of four storeys of pillared maṇḍapas set one above the other and rising to a height of 50 feet. But it is in the elaboration of the pillars of Bhairavakonda that the beginnings of a distinctive Pallava 'order' can be traced, and the figure of a lion is introduced and combined with the pillar in its lower portion and another in the capital. This order of pillar and capital was further refined and developed into a column of striking elegance in the productions falling in the second group called after Mahāmalla.

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All the examples of the Mahāmalla group are found in the now deserted seaport town of Māmallapuram (Mahābalipuram) at the mouth of the Palar river, 32 miles south of Madras. A large granite hill 100 feet high, half a mile in length from north to south and a quarter of a mile wide, and a smaller granite outcrop further south, admirably served the purpose of the talented Pallava sculptors. Māmallapuram must have been a busy port with its royal residences, bazaars, warehouses and harbour. All the secular buildings of relatively perishable material have disappeared but the halls and sculptures quarried out of the natural rock with a religious intent have survived. There can be little doubt that Māmallapuram was one of the chief entrepôts of South India and that from it streamed forth strong cultural influences which shaped the art of Hindu colonies in Indonesia and Indo-China.

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Clear traces survive of a carefully-designed system to supply the town with fresh water drawn from the Palar river and distributed to all parts of the port; and it is quite possible that the remarkable open-air sculpture 'The Descent of the Ganges' (Pl. VII), long known as 'Arjuna's Penance', was not unrelated to this system. This vast sculpture, in high relief, is nearly 30 yards long and 23 feet high, covering the sea-face of the cliff. There is a cascade in a natural fissure in the middle of the rock in which a band of nāgas and nāgīs sport and symbolize the sacred waters, and on both sides are sculptured figures of deities, human beings and animals of all kinds approaching or facing the fissure in attitudes of adoration. ‘What we have before us here,’ says Grousset, ‘is a vast picture, a regular fresco in stone. This relief is a masterpiece of classic art in the breadth of its composition, the sincerity of its impulse which draws all creatures together round the beneficent waters, and its deep, fresh love of nature.’¹ A small shrine immediately to the left of the cascade contains the standing figure of Śiva. Before this temple is bowed the emaciated figure of Bhagiratha who is represented also above practising tapas with upraised arms. Among the sculptured animals, the monumental elephants on the right and the ascetic cat imitating the posture of Bhagiratha’s penance with trustful mice playing at its feet are particularly noteworthy, as also the pair of deer which look on the scene ‘from the mouth of a cave opposite, on the left hand side, with the life-like action of the stag scratching his nose with his hind foot’. More amazing still in its masterly realism is the detached family of monkeys sculptured in the round ‘with the male picking vermin off the female while she suckles her two little ones’.

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¹ Grousset, India (English translation), p. 230.

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There are all together ten maṇḍapas of the Mahāmalla style on various sites on the main hill at Māmallapuram. All of them exhibit much progress from the simple style of the Mahendra caves though they still retain more or less the same general character and proportions as before. None of them is a large structure. Generally speaking the dimensions are: façade, 25 feet wide, 15-20 feet high, depth (including cella) 25 feet; pillars, 9 feet high, sides 1-2 feet at widest; cellas, rectangular, each side 5-10 feet. The pillars are the main features. The roll cornice above them in front is decorated with kūḍus. Above the cornice is a parapet formed of miniature shrines alternately long and short. In the interior, pilasters and mouldings on the walls supply a suitable frame for the sculptural figures of mythological subjects. Some of the more developed pillars, like those on the exterior of the Mahishāsura maṇḍapa and in the façade of the Varāha maṇḍapa, look singularly graceful. But the two inner columns of the former, both lion pillars, are the best of the whole lot. The fluting and bands of their shafts, the graceful necking (taḍi), the beautiful ‘melon’ capitals (*kumbha*) and the lotus form (*idaḷ*) above, with the wide abacus (*palagai*), combine very well to produce the typical Pallava ‘order’. Notable among the sculptures are the magnificent reliefs of the Varāha and Vāmana *avatāras*, of Sūrya, Durgā and Gaja-lakshmī, and two fine groups of royal figures representing Simhavishnu and Mahendravarman with their queens, all in the Varāha cave. The vivid dramatic effect and the sureness in the groups of figures characteristic of these sculptures marks other reliefs also, such as the sleep of Vishnu on the serpent Ananta, and the battle of Durgā with the buffalo demon Mahisha, both in the Mahisha *maṇḍapa*, and Krishna raising the Govardhana in the Pañca Pāṇḍava *maṇḍapa*.

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Mention must be made in passing of the existence of rock-cut *maṇḍapas* in the Pāṇḍya country. These have not received much attention, but doubtless they were contemporary with the Pallava *maṇḍapas* and are more or less in the same style. One prominent example with sculptured scenes on its walls is found at Tirupparan-kunram, near Madura, hidden behind a good-sized medieval temple of Subrahmanya and serving as its *garbhagriha*. Other instances of temples built in front of rock-cut *maṇḍapas* are known, e.g. at Śingaperumāḷ-kōyil in Chingleput district.

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The monolithic *rathas* popularly called the Seven Pagodas, though in the same style as the *maṇḍapas*, are obviously copies of wooden religious structures with all the details of timber work faithfully reproduced in granite. None of their interiors is finished and they do not seem ever to have been actually used. There are eight of them all together, the southern group called after the names of Draupadi, Arjuna, Bhima, Dharmarāja and Sahadeva, and three others in the north and north-west called Gaṇeśa, Piḍāri and Vaḷaiyān-kuṭṭai. The *rathas* are only of moderate size, none of them being more than 42 feet long, 35 feet broad or 40 feet high. The Draupadi *ratha* is merely a cell, a copy of a thatched structure, with its base supported by animal figures, a lion alternating with an elephant. All the other *rathas* are copies of the *vihāra* or the *caitya*. The *vihāra* type is pyramidal in shape, and the Dharmarāja is a good example of the style. It is a small square hall in the centre with pillared verandahs below and a pyramidal *śikhara* above. Its plinth has many strong mouldings and its porticos with lion pillars greatly improve the appearance. ‘This type of design,’ says Brown, ‘is not only an effective production in itself, but it is a storehouse of pleasing forms and motifs, besides being replete with potentialities.’

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The Bhīma, Sahadeva and Gaṇeśa *rathas* are of the *caitya* type, oblong in plan, with two or more storeys, and barrel roofs with gable ends. The Sahadeva is apsidal, a form adopted in some later Pallava and early Chola temples, the shape of the latter specially designated *gajapṛṣṭha* (‘elephant back’). The Gaṇeśa is entered through a pillared portico on its long side. The oblong plan, diminishing storeys and barrel roofs with pinnacles (*kalaśas*) and gable ends of these *rathas* may well have suggested the design for the later *gōpuras*, or entrance towers of temples. All these *rathas* were most probably Śaiva in character and the figure sculpture on all of them is of the same high quality as in the *maṇḍapas*. Men and gods are sculptured in the most graceful forms, and the animal sculpture is superb. Deities have four arms, *dvārapālas* only two. For some unknown reason work on these monoliths was left incomplete, and we enter on the second phase of Pallava architecture marked entirely by structural temples in stone.

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These structural temples again fall into two groups—the Rājasimha group (*c.* 700-800), and the Nandivarman group (800-900). There are six examples of the former: three at Māmallapuram (the Shore, Īśvara and Mukunda temples), one at Panamalai (South Arcot district), and the temples of Kailāsanātha and Vaikuṇṭhaperumāl at Kāñchipuram. The earliest of them was doubtless the Shore temple (Pl. VIIIa). Its excellent workmanship is proved by its having withstood, in a very exposed position, the action of wind and sea and the shifting sands of the shore. The plan of the temple is somewhat unusual. Its cella faces the sea and is located almost at the water’s edge. The usual adjuncts to the temple had therefore to be accommodated in its rear. A massive enclosing wall surrounds the central building and entry into the open courtyard is obtained from the west. Two additional shrines were attached as an afterthought to the western end of the main shrine, one of which has a smaller *vimāna* and presents the appearance at first sight of being the main entrance. These additions go far to account for the unusual, though by no means unpleasing, appearance of the Shore temple with its two *vimānas*. Clearly the buildings in this temple are a logical development from the Dharmarāja *ratha*, allowance being made for the change from the rock-cut to the structural technique. At the same time there is a marked attempt, particularly in the treatment of the *vimānas*, to leave the idea of the *vihāra* behind and evolve a lighter and more rhythmic tower. The lion motif, particularly, in the pilasters becomes more developed, and in the Shore temple, as Brown remarks, ‘this heraldic lion, erect and holding up a Dravidian capital, projects from every angle, and is also introduced at intervals around the lower part of the entire building’. The outer enclosure contained a system of shallow cisterns holding water brought by conduits, any overflow being led into the sea. The parapet of the imposing surrounding wall was crowned by figures of couchant bulls and all round the exterior there were boldly carved lion pilasters at close intervals. The richly ornamented doorway on the west led into a *maṇḍapa* of which only the foundations remain.

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Not long after the Shore temple came the Kailāsanātha at Kāñchipuram built mostly in the reign of Rājasimha though the actual completion of the structure owed something to his son Mahendravarman. In its original form, the temple consisted of a sanctuary with its pyramidal *vimāna* and a detached pillared hall or *maṇḍapa* in front, the whole enclosed in a rectangular courtyard by a high wall composed of cells. The *maṇḍapa* and the sanctuary were joined together centuries later by an intermediate *ardhamaṇḍapa* which has spoiled the total effect. The sanctum and the *vimāna* conform to the type of the Dharmarāja *ratha* except for the subsidiary shrines. These are seven in number, one at each angle of the sanctum and one in the middle of each free side, and they add greatly to the beauty of the whole. All the main features of the Pallava style are assembled together in this temple in a very fascinating way. The cells in the interior of the enclosing wall which bear traces of painting, ‘the design of the wall itself with its parapet of cupolas’, the sturdy pillars of the *maṇḍapa* and the constant repetition of the lion pilaster, all fit into the scheme admirably. The *vimāna* is a further development from that of the Shore temple and is at once substantial and well-proportioned. The entrance to the courtyard is by means of small openings on the sides of a large subsidiary temple, the Mahendravarmeśvara, built in such a manner as to suggest the beginnings of the *gōpuram*. The builders of the Kailāsanātha temple would seem to have exercised some thought in selecting their building materials as its foundations are of granite and able to carry a great weight, while sandstone was used for the sculptured superstructure. The action of time has rendered many repairs necessary and these have not always been effected with discrimination.

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