Temples.
Before proceeding to speak of the temples themselves, it may add to the clearness of what follows if we first explain what the peculiarities of the styles are. This we are able to do from a small model in stone of a Kashmiri temple ([Woodcut No. 158]), which was drawn by General Cunningham; such miniature temples being common throughout India, and in all instances exact copies of their larger prototypes.
The temple in this instance is surmounted by four roofs (in the built examples, so far as they are known, there are only two or three), which are obviously copied from the usual wooden roofs common to most buildings in Kashmir, where the upper pyramid covers the central part of the building, and the lower a verandah, separated from the centre either by walls or merely by a range of pillars.[307] In the wooden examples the interval between the two roofs seems to have been left open for light and air; in the stone buildings it is closed with ornaments. Besides this, however, all these roofs are relieved by dormer windows, of a pattern very similar to those found in mediæval buildings in Europe; and the same steep, sloping lines are used also to cover doorways and porches, these being virtually a section of the main roof itself, and evidently a copy of the same wooden construction.
158. Model of Temple in Kashmir.
The pillars which support the porticoes and the one on which the model stands are by far the most striking peculiarity of this style, their shafts being almost identical with those of the Grecian Doric, and unlike anything of the class found in other parts of India. Generally they are from three to four diameters in height, diminishing slightly towards the capital, and adorned with sixteen flutes, rather shallower than those of the Grecian order. Both the bases and capitals are, it is true, far more complicated than would have been tolerated in Greece, but at Pæstum and in Rome we find with the Doric order a complexity of mouldings by no means unlike that found here. These peculiarities are still more evident in the annexed representation of a pillar found in Srinagar ([Woodcut No. 159]), which is a far more highly ornamented example than the last, but equally classical in its details, and, if anything, more unlike any known examples of true Hindu architecture. Nowhere in Kashmir do we find any trace of the bracket capital of the Hindus, nor of the changes from square to octagon, or to the polygon of sixteen sides, and so on. Now that we are becoming familiar with the extent of classical influence that prevailed in Gandhara (ante, p. 176) down to the 7th or 8th century, we have no difficulty in understanding whence these quasi-Grecian forms were derived, nor why they should be found so prevalent in this valley. It adds, however, very considerably to our interest in the subject to find that the civilization of the West left so strong an impress on the arts of this part of India that its influence can be detected in all the Kashmiri buildings down to the time when the local style perished under Mahomedan influence in the beginning of the 14th century. Although, therefore, there can be no mistake about the principal forms of the architecture of Kashmir being derived from the classical styles of the West, and as little doubt as to the countries through which it was introduced into the valley, it must not be overlooked that the classical influence is fainter and more remote from its source in Kashmir than in Gandhara. Nothing resembling the Corinthian capitals of the Jamalgiri monastery are found in the valley. The classical features in Kashmir are in degree more like those of the Manikyala tope and the very latest examples in the Peshawur valley. The one style, in fact, seems to commence where the other ends, and to carry on the tradition for centuries after it had been lost in the country from which it was introduced.
159. Pillar at Srinagar. (From a drawing by W. Carpenter, Esq.)