CHAPTER III.
WESTERN INDIA.
CONTENTS.
Dharwar—Brahmanical Rock-cut Temples.
Dharwar.
If the province of Orissa is interesting from the completeness and uniformity of its style of Indo-Aryan architecture, that of Dharwar, or, more correctly speaking of Maharastra, is almost equally so from exactly the opposite conditions. In the western province, the Dravidian style struggles with the northern for supremacy during all the earlier stages of their growth, and the mode in which the one influenced the other will be one of the most interesting and instructive lessons we can learn from their study, when the materials exist for a thorough investigation of the architectural history of this province. In magnificence, however, the western can never pretend to rival the eastern province. There are more and far finer buildings in the one city of Bhuvaneswar alone than in all the cities of Maharastra put together, and the extreme elaboration of their details gives the Orissan examples a superiority that the western temples cannot pretend to rival.
Among the oldest and most characteristic of the Dharwar temples is that of Papanatha, at Purudkul, or Pittadkul, as it is now spelt. As will be seen from the plan of this temple given above ([Woodcut No. 122], page 221), the cell, with its tower, has not the same predominating importance which it always had in Orissa; and instead of a mere vestibule it has a four-pillared porch, which would in itself be sufficient to form a complete temple on the eastern side of India. Beyond this, however, is the great porch, Mantapa, or Jagamohan—square, as usual, but here it possesses sixteen pillars, in four groups, instead of the astylar arrangements so common in the east. It is, in fact, a copy, with very slight alterations, of the plan of the great Saiva temple at the same place ([Woodcut No. 189]), or the Kylas at Ellora ([Woodcut No. 186]). These, with others recently brought to light, form a group of early temples wholly Dravidian in style, but having no affinity, except in plan, with the Temple of Papanatha, which is as essentially Indo-Aryan in all its architectural arrangements. This, in fact, may be looked upon as the characteristic difference between the styles of Dharwar and Orissa. The western style, from its proximity to the Dravidian and admixture with it, in fact, used pillars freely and with effect whenever wanted; while their use in Orissa is almost unknown in the best ages of the style, and their introduction, as it took place there, showed only too clearly the necessity that had arisen in the decay of the style, to supply with foreign forms the want of originality of invention.
241. View of Temple of Papanatha at Pittadkul. (From a Photograph.)