Vishveshwar, Benares.
If you ask a Brahman of Benares to point out to you the most ancient temple of his city, he inevitably leads you to the Vishveshwar, as not only the most holy, but the oldest of its sacred edifices. Yet it is known, and cannot be disputed, that the temple, as it now stands, was erected from the foundation in the last century, to replace one that had been thrown down and desecrated by the bigot Aurungzebe. This he did in order that he might erect on the most venerated spot of the Hindus his mosque, whose tall minarets still rear their heads in insult over all the Hindu buildings of the city. The strange thing is, that in this assertion the Brahmans are not so very
258. Temple of Vishveshwar. (From Prinsep’s ‘Views in Benares.’) No scale.
far from representing the true state of the case. There is hardly any great city in Hindustan that can show so few evidences of antiquity as Benares. The Buddhist remains at Sarnath hardly can be said to belong to the city, and even there they are, as above explained, the most modern examples of their class in India. The fact is, that the oldest buildings in the city are the Moslem tombs and buildings about the Bukariya Kund, and they almost certainly belong to the 15th century. Even the temple of Vishveshwar, which Aurungzebe destroyed, was not erected before the reign of his predecessor Akbar. The style is so nearly identical with that of known buildings of his reign, at Muttra and elsewhere, that there can be no doubt on this head. When desecrated it was the principal, and probably the most splendid, edifice of its class in the city. It may be, and probably is true, that the Vedic Brahmans erected their fire altars, and worshipped the sun, and paid adoration to the elements on this spot 4000 years ago. It may be also that the emblem of Siva has attracted admiring crowds to this spot for the last 1000 years; but there is no material evidence that before the time of Akbar (A.D. 1556-1605) any important permanent building was ever erected there to dignify the locality.
The present temple is a double one: two towers or spires almost exactly duplicates of each other. One of these is represented in the preceding woodcut (No. [258]), and they are connected by a porch, crowned by a dome borrowed from the Mahomedan style, which, though graceful and pleasing in design, hardly harmonises with the architecture of the rest of the temple. The spires are each 51 ft. in height, and covered with ornament to an extent quite sufficient even in this style. The details too are all elegant, and sharply and cleanly cut, and without any evidence of vulgarity or bad taste; but they are feeble as compared with the more ancient examples, and the forms of the pyramidal parts have lost that expression of power and of constructive propriety which were so evident in the earlier stages of the art. It is, however, curiously characteristic of the style and place, that a building, barely 50 ft. in length, and the same in height, should be the principal temple in the most sacred city of the Hindus, and equally so that one hardly 150 years old should be considered as the most ancient, while it is only that which marks this most holy spot in the religious cosmogony of the Hindus.
Temple of Scindiah’s Mother, Gualior.
One more example must suffice to explain the ultimate form which the ancient towers of the Orissan temples have reached in the present century. It is just finished, having been erected by the mother of the present reigning Maharajah of Gualior, and to it has been added a tomb or cenotaph either by herself or her son. As will be seen from the woodcut (No. [259]) it is elegant, though feeble as compared with ancient examples. The Mahomedan dome appears in the background, and the curved Bengali roof in the pavilion in front. The most striking peculiarity of the style is, that the sikras have nearly lost the graceful curved form, which is the most marked peculiarity of all the ancient examples. As has already been remarked, the straight-lined pyramid first appears in the Takht-i-Suleiman’s temple in Kashmir, where its introduction was probably hastened by the wooden straight-lined roofs of the original native style. It is equally evident, however, in a temple which Cheyt Sing, the Raja of Benares, erected at Ramnugger in the end of the last or beginning of the present century. Since that time the tendency has been more and more in that direction, and if not checked, the probability is that the curve will be entirely lost before the century is out. To an European eye, accustomed only to our straight-lined spires, that may seem hardly a matter for regret; but to any one educated in Eastern forms it can scarcely appear doubtful that these spires will lose half their charm if deprived of the graceful curved outline they have so long retained.