The second type of rock excavations are known as vihāras or monasteries devoted to the residence of monks and ascetics. They usually consisted of a hall surrounded by a number of cells—the earliest with stone beds in them. In the later vihāras there was a shrine in the centre of the back wall containing a large image of the Buddha. In the Orissa caves, near Cuttach, we have a series of excavations that do not conform to these arrangements: they are early, dating as far back as the 2nd century B.C., but they belong to the Jain sect, which dates from the same age as the Buddhist.
On the north-west frontiers of India, about the Swāt and Yūsufzai districts, anciently known as Gandhāra, are found a remarkable class of remains, much ruined, but that must have abounded in sculptures belonging to the Buddhist cult. It is among these we find the first representations of Buddha and of the characters belonging to the Buddhist pantheon. The influence of classical art manifested in these images leaves no doubt that they were modelled after western patterns, carried thither by Greeks or brought from the Levant by Buddhist emissaries. The scenes depicted, however, have frequently an architectural setting in which we find represented façades with pillars fashioned with distinctly Corinthian capitals. These sculptures we can now assign with confidence, from dated epigraphs, to dates from the last years of the century B.C. till the 4th century A.D. One inscription of A.D. 47 is of a king Gondophernēs, who is mentioned in the legend of the apostle Thomas.
In the time of the great Gupta dynasty, from about A.D. 320 to 500, the architectural forms developed in variety and richness of decoration. To the columns were given higher square bases than before, and sometimes a sur-base; the capitals, which previously had a vase as the chief member, were developed by a foliaged ornament, springing from the mouth of the vase and falling down upon it from the four corners, and so lending strength to the neck whilst converting the round capital into a square support for the abacus. Often, too, a similar arrangement of foliage was applied to the early bases; and this form quite superseded the Persepolitan pillar, with its bell-shaped capital, which now disappeared from Indian art. The shafts were round or of sixteen or more sides; pilasters were ornamented on the shafts; and the spires of the temple were simple in outline and rose almost vertically at first and curving inwards towards the summit, which was always capped by a large circular fluted disk supporting a vase, whilst the surface of the tower was covered with a peculiar sort of horse-shoe diaper. This style prevailed all over Hindustan, and was continued with modifications varying with age and locality down almost to the Mahommedan conquest.
| Fig. 2.—Plan of Temple of Mārtand.] |
In Kashmir from the 8th century, if not earlier, till the Mahommedan conquest we find a style of architecture possessing a certain quasi-classical element which has little if any connexion with the art of the rest of India. The best-known example of this Kashmir style is the temple of Mārtand, about 3 m. east from Islāmābād or Anatnāg, the old capital. It stands in a court 220 ft. long by 142 ft. wide surrounded by the ruins of some eighty small cells, with a large entrance porch at the east end. The temple itself was 60 ft. long by 38 ft. wide, with two wings, and consisted of two apartments—a naos and cella. The trefoiled or cusped arch on the doors of the temple and cells is a striking peculiarity of the style, and may have been derived from the section of the Buddhist chaitya. It is used decoratively, however, rather than constructively. The pillars and pilasters of the portico and temple bear a close resemblance to some of the later forms of the Roman Doric, and have usually sixteen shallow flutes on the shafts, with numerous members in the base and capital. A triangular pediment surmounts the doorways, and on gable-ends or projecting faces are representations of double sloping roofs, much in the style of modern Kashmir wooden roofs, of which also many of the temple-roofs in Nepal are exaggerated examples. The Mārtand temple was, in all probability, built in the 8th century, between A.D. 725 and 760, and was erected as a temple of the Sun, one of whose names is Mārtand. For, till the 12th century at least, Sun-worship was quite prevalent in the north and west of India. At a remote village called Buniār is a much better preserved specimen of the style: and at Avantipur, Vāngath, Payer and Pāndrethan are other interesting examples of the style. That at Pāndrethan about 3 m. from Srinagar is a well-preserved little temple, built between A.D. 906 and 921, and perhaps exhibits the most clearly the characteristics of the style.
| Fig. 3.—Temple of Pāndrethan. |
In the Himālayas the architecture is still largely wooden, raised on stone basements and is often picturesque. In the Nepal valley we meet with hemispherical chaityas or stūpas on low bases with lofty brick spires, and some of them of great antiquity, along with temples having three or four storeys divided by sloping roofs, and others in the modern Hindu style of northern India.
In South Kanara, especially at Mūdbidare (Mudbidri), there are also Jain temples and tombs with double and triple sloping roofs that resemble the native temples of Nepal, with which, however, they had no connexion. The whole style is closely in imitation of wooden originals, the forms of which have been derived from the local thatched dwellings of the district. The interiors of the Kanara temples are often very rich in carving, the massive pillars being carved like ivory or the precious metals. Associated with these and other temples are elegant, monolithic pillars placed on square bases, the shafts richly carved and the capitals widespreading, some of them supporting, on four very small colonnettes, a square roof elaborately modelled. These stambhas or pillars are the representatives of the early Buddhist lāts or columns raised at their temples, and bear emblems distinctive of the sects to which they respectively belong.
| Fig. 4.—Kailās at Ellora. |
The southern portion of the peninsula is peopled by a race known as Dravidians, and to the style of architecture practised over most of this area we may conveniently apply the name of the race. This Dravidian architecture was essentially different from that of other regions of India and is of one type. One of the best-known groups of monuments in this style is that of the “Seven Pagodas” or the Māmallapuram raths, on the seashore, south from Madras. These raths are each hewn out of a block of granite, and are rather models of temples than such. They are the earliest forms of Dravidian architecture and belong to the 7th century. To the same age belongs the temple of Kailāsanāth at Conjeeveram, and to the following century some of the temples in the south of the Bombay Presidency, and the famous monolithic temple of the Kailās at Ellora near Aurangābād.