“ INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. The development of architectural art in India is of the highest interest for the history of the subject; and whatever may be our estimate of its aesthetic qualities, we can hardly fail to realize that Indian builders attained with marked success the aims they had before them, though they employed arrangements and adopted forms and details very different from those of western builders in ancient and medieval times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A notable group of between thirty and forty temples in this style exists at Khajurāho in Bundelkhand. They belong to both the Hindu and the Jain cults, and mostly date from the 10th and 11th centuries. Many of them are covered, inside and out, with the richest sculpture, and may be regarded architecturally as “the most beautiful in form as well as the most elegant in detail” of the temples of Northern India. With these, the temples at Bhuvaneswar in Orissa exhibit this style at its best. The latter have the earlier form of spire, nearly perpendicular below, but curving inwards near the summit. ”

“ Coming now to Northern India, we find the Hindu architectural style more widely spread and more varied than in the south, but wanting somewhat in individuality. Examples of the same order, however, are to be found also far to the south in the Chalukyan area. The characteristic that first appeals to our notice is the curvilinear spires of the temples, and the absence of that exuberance of sculpture seen in the great Chalukyan temples of the South ”

“ The cloisters surrounding the open courts of the mosques and the galleries within are closely allied to the Hindu style, being constructed with short square pillars having bracket capitals supporting lintels and roof of flat slabs. But the gateways and main features of the mosques are arched. The mosque itself consists of a central square hall covered by a lofty dome of the whole width of it, in front of which stands the great propylon or gate, of massive outline and rising to the full height of the central dome. ”

“ India possesses no historical work to afford us a landmark previous to the invasion of Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C., nor do we know of an architectural monument of earlier date. For later periods there are fortunately a few examples dated by inscriptions, and for others by applying the scientific principles developed by Thomas Rickman for the discrimination of other styles and the relative ages of architectural works, we are enabled to arrange the monuments of India approximately in chronological sequence or order of succession. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Over the shrine rises the spire, of pyramidal form, but always divided into storeys and crowned by a small dome, either circular or polygonal in shape. The cornices are of double curvature, whilst in other Indian styles they are mostly straight with a downward slope. ”

“ On each side of the dome is a compartment divided into two storeys by a stone floor supported on pillars, and beyond this, on each side, is a larger apartment covered by a pointed ribbed vault. The ornamental work is bold and striking rather than delicate, and the mihrābs or qiblas are marked by severe simplicity, and form a link in the evolution of the later form under Mogul rule. These buildings afford a marked expression of strength combined with a degree of refinement that is rare in other styles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
Buildings in the Dravidian style are very numerous in proportion to the extent of the area in which they are found. The temples generally consist of a square base, ornamented externally by thin tall pilasters, and containing the cell in which the image is kept. ”

“ The capital of the Bengal kingdom was at Gaur, which had been the metropolis of a native kingdom probably since the 9th century. As the country is practically without stone, the Hindu buildings would be chiefly of brick, but pillars, images and details were of hard potstone or hornblende; and these would afford materials for the Moslem conquerors. The construction of large buildings of brick required heavy piers for the arches and thicker walls than those constructed of stone. Then such piers and walls, when enriched by a facing of moulded or glazed tiles, would appear still heavier ”

“ The tombs were pillared pavilions of varying dimensions, the central area over the grave covered by a dome standing on twelve pillars. These pillars connected by screens of stone trellis work carved in ever-varying patterns, and round this there might be a verandah with twenty pillars in the periphery, or a double aisle with thirty-two in the outer square. And as these were irregularly spaced in order to allow the inner twelve to support the lintels of a regular octagon for the dome, the monotony of equal spacing was avoided. ”

“ Among Chalukyan temples a prevalent form is that of three shrines round one central hall. The support of the roofs of these halls is almost always after the Dravidian plan of four pillars, or multiples of four, in squares, so that larger domes were never attempted. Both in Dravidian and northern temples the projections on the walls are generally formed by increments of slight thickness added flatly to their faces, and, however thick, they are so placed as to leave the true corners of the shrines, &c., more or less recessed. ”

“ The style is strictly arcuate, without admixture of the general trabeate structural methods followed by the native Hindus; and while at Jaunpur and Ahmedābād, at the same period, we find the strong influence of native methods copied in the Mahommedan architecture, at Māndu the builders clung steadily to the pointed arch style, without any attempt, however, at groining. ”

“ And this dome, rising to about 175 ft. from the floor, roofs over an area 130 ft. square, or 2500 sq. ft. larger than the Pantheon at Rome, where stability is secured only by throwing a great mass of masonry on the haunches. The Jami masjid, begun by Alī Adil Shāh, 1567, but never quite completed, is one of the finest mosques in India. The central area of the mosque proper is covered by a large dome, supported in the same way as that on Mahommed Shāh’s tomb. This dome, like all the earlier ones in India, perhaps wants in outside elevation ”

“ 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. ”

“ The great stūpa at Sānchi in Bhopal is now the most entire of the class, as it still retains the gateways—styled torans—which must have been a feature of all stūpas, though perhaps mostly in wood (see Plate I. fig. 8) . ”

“ Another feature of these temples, especially those of later date, is the gopurams or great gateways, placed at the entrances to the surrounding courts, and often on all four sides. In general design they are like the spires over the shrines, but about twice as wide as deep, and very frequently far more imposing than the temples themselves.
The style is distinctly of wooden origin, and of this the very attenuated pilasters on the outer walls and the square pillars of small section are evidences. ”

“ They are almost always in pairs of the same design, the whole effect being singularly varied and elegant.
The great temple at Halebīd (see Plate II. fig. 11) , begun about A.D. 1250, was left unfinished at the Mahommedan conquest in 1310. It is a double temple, measuring 160 ft. by 122 ft., and is covered with an amazing amount of the richest sculpture. But the spires were never raised over the shrines. The Kedaresvara temple at Balagāmvi is perhaps one of the oldest of the style in Mysore, and there are other good examples at Kubattūr, Harnhalli, Arsikere, Harihar, Koravangala and elsewhere ”

“ Some of the details of this style are very elaborate; in fact, many of the finer temples were completely overlaid with sculptural ornament. The pillars are markedly different from the earlier Dravidian forms: they are massive, richly carved, often circular and highly polished. ”