Indian architecture

“ Throughout this Indian section there are large photographs of the temples and palaces representing the eras of Indian architecture—Buddhist, Dravidian, Jain, Moslem—and near many of them actual specimens or casts of their ornamentation. Some of these specimens of sculptured ornamentation fill one with amazement at the degree of art-culture they imply, and by their refined beauty. Here the capital of a pillar is fringed round with small elephant-heads; there a pedestal is adorned with mounted horsemen in relief, so regularly dispersed that at first they might hardly be noticed. ”

“ If any one doubts the fallacy of an observation that has lately been made that 'architecture is still a living art in India,' we would only ask him to travel a little in the interior with his eyes open. He will find whole architectural provinces (if the term may be applied where the art does not exist) in which every rule of work, and every sense of the fitness of things has been lost sight of. He will see Hindu temples built in debased style of Muhammadan architecture, the debasements being so great that a further depth cannot be imagined. ”

“ But the wonderful eye for colour, and the inborn taste of architecture that belongs to every Indian, makes them marvellously picturesque and interesting. There are the carved gateways, which generally lead into the chowk, or narrow street, where no carriage can enter; the curiously wrought overhanging balconies with scarlet striped blinds, from behind which peep out dark-eyed nautch girls. There is the minaret of a mosque in one corner, and the carved remains of a Hindu temple in the other. Here a group of men and women squatting over a hole in the earth, where they are pounding millet ”

“ In the meanwhile, I shall have realised a long-cherished dream if I have succeeded in popularising the subject by rendering its principles generally intelligible, and can thus give an impulse to its study, and assist in establishing Indian architecture on a stable basis, so that it may take its true position among the other great styles which have ennobled the arts of mankind. ”

“ Unfortunately, many European writers and the Public Works Administration of India have lent support to fiction that all that is great in Indian architecture was created by foreigners, offering an almost insuperable impediment to that perfect fulfilment of the needs and desires of the age which Indian master-builders have always been able to accomplish in former generations. ”

“ It is, in fact, amazing to observe to what an extent this dynasty filled its capitals with gorgeous buildings during the one short century of its existence, but all—or with the fewest possible exceptions—in the worst possible taste. Whatever may be said of the Renaissance, or revival of classical architecture in Europe in the 16th century, in India it was an unmitigated misfortune. The unintelligent vulgarity with which the “Orders” are there used, by a people who were capable of such noble things in their own styles, is one of the most startling phenomena in the history of architecture. ”

“ Until these various ethnographical and mythological problems are understood and appreciated, the styles of architecture in India seem a chaos without purpose or meaning. Once, however, they are grasped and applied, their history assumes a dignity and importance far greater than is due to any merely æsthetic merits they may possess. Even that, however, is in many respects remarkable, and, when combined with the scientific value of the styles, seem to render them as worthy of study as those of any other people with whose arts we are acquainted. ”

“ No other form is so essentially Indian, and no one tells its tale with the same unmistakable distinctness.” Under the Mahommedan rule the Hindu architects employed introduced forms and ornaments into the works they constructed for their rulers, superior in elegance to any the latter knew or could have invented. Hence there arose a style combining all the beauty and finish of the previous native art with a certain magnificence of conception which is deficient in their own works. ”

“ Upon this rhapsody it will be sufficient to remark that halls were entirely unknown in Indian architecture. Neither a hall, as that term is used by us, has ever been seen in an Indian house, nor has one been found in the ruins of any Indian structure. An external corridor has occasionally been found in ruins of houses in Central America. ”

“ It is curious, however, and instructive, in concluding our history of architecture as practised within the limits of India properly so called, to observe how completely we have been walking in a circle. We began by tracing how, two hundred years before Christ, a wooden style was gradually assuming lithic forms, and by degrees being elaborated into a style where hardly a reminiscence of wood remained. We conclude with finding the style of Hullabîd and Bijapur, or Delhi, returning to forms as appropriate to carpentry but as unsuited to masonry as the rails or gateways at Bharhut or Sanchi. ”

“ The Taj is the jewel—the ideal itself. Indian architecture is in much closer affinity to the great conceptions of the Gothic builders than it is to anything of classic or Renaissance construction. The Gothic cathedral, with its sculptured arches and its spires pointing heavenwards, is a symbol, as most Eastern buildings are symbols. The Mogul artists, being prevented by the precepts of the Muhammadan religion from attempting sculpture, as understood in Europe, succeeded in investing their great architectural monuments with an extraordinary personal character. ”

“ This probably influenced their architecture and led to that largeness of scale and grandeur which characterized the style, differing markedly from that of the buildings of Agra and Delhi, but scarcely, if at all, inferior in originality of design and boldness of execution. There is no trace of Hindu forms or details; the style was their own, and was worked out with striking boldness and marked success. ”

“ If you cannot be original (and doubtless the genius of originality is given but to few) , then study the noble specimens of Eastern architecture that are still left to us, both in India and other eastern countries, and strive to comprehend the meaning and intent with which that style was designed; you may then catch something of the spirit of those great builders, and produce something at least suitable to the climate and the country, and creditable to the taste, which does not form a grotesque excrescence out of harmony with everything around it. ”

“ It is by watching the methods still followed in designing buildings in that remote locality that we become aware how it is that the uncultivated Hindu can rise in architecture to a degree of originality and perfection which has not been attained in Europe since the Middle Ages, but which might easily be recovered by following the same processes. ”

“ Those who have an opportunity of seeing what perfect buildings the ignorant uneducated natives of India are now producing, will easily understand how success may be achieved, while those who observe what failures the best educated and most talented architects in Europe are constantly perpetrating, may, by a study of Indian models, easily see why this must inevitably be the result. ”

“ If architecture ever again assumes an onward path, it will not be by leaning too strongly towards either of the extremes just named, but by grasping somewhere the happy mean between the two.
For our present purpose, the great value of the study of these Indian examples is that it widens so immensely our basis for architectural criticism. It is only by becoming familiar with forms so utterly dissimilar from those we have hitherto been conversant with, that we perceive how narrow is the purview that is content with one form or one passing fashion. ”

“ If the palaces of Muhammadan India, except for the extreme beauty of the decoration, can but rarely take the same rank in architecture as those of the Hindu princes of Rajputana, on the other hand its mosques and tombs are unsurpassed, and generally appeal more to the European critic than the earlier works of the Indian master-builder, to whom the entire credit of their creation is due ”

“ The builders, also, who devoted their whole lives to the service of the deity, thereby acquired merit for themselves, just as the Brahmans did by the repetition of mantras, or the pilgrim by his constant pacing round the holy shrine. The magnificent royal chapels built in the course of many centuries by the Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu dynasties of Northern India are a proof that the restrictions thus imposed upon the master-builder's initiative did not deaden his creative powers—the decadence of Indian architecture was due to other causes. ”

“ Since the time when Sûraj Mull completed this fairy creation, the tendency, not only with the Rajput princes, but the sovereigns of such states as Oude, and even as Delhi, has been to copy the bastard style of Italian architecture we have introduced into India. It was natural, perhaps, that they should admire the arts of a race who had shown themselves in war and policy superior to themselves; but it was fatal to their arts, and whether a revival is now possible remains to be seen. ”

“ The colonists who established themselves in these regions brought with them the Dravidian taste for great buildings, but either their travels enlarged their artistic powers or they modified the Indian style by assimilating successfully some architectural features found in their new home. What pre-Indian architecture there may have been among the Khmers we do not know, but the fact that the earliest known monuments are Hindu makes it improbable that stone buildings on a large scale existed before their arrival. ”

“ The Mandu architects had the same initiation to the Hindu forms in the mosques at Dhar; and there must have been innumerable Jaina temples to furnish materials to a far greater extent than we find them utilised, but we neither find them borrowing nor imitating, but adhering steadily to the pointed-arch style, which is the essential characteristic of their art in foreign countries. It is easy to understand, on the other hand, why in Bengal the trabeate style never was in vogue. The country is practically without stone, or any suitable material for forming either pillars or beams. ”

“ We must remember that, to the missionary padres, a bell-tower was not a luxury of architecture, but an essential. The bells must be hung up high, in order that their calling tones could penetrate to the farthest recesses of the valley, the canyons, the ravines, the foothills, wherever an Indian ear could hear, an Indian soul be reached. Indians were their one thought—to convert them and bring them into the fold of Mother Church their sole occupation. ”

“ These alone ought to be more than sufficient to recommend their study to every architect. To the historian of art the wonder is to find temples with such a singular combination of styles in such a locality—Indian temples constructed with pillars almost purely classical in design, and ornamented with bas-reliefs so strangely Egyptian in character. ”

“ Seeing that before the time of the Buddha these Aryan royal craftsmen thus deliberately preferred wood as building material because it was the substance which produced the sacred fire, and also of set purpose used other impermanent materials in their improvised temples, rather than brick or stone, it is highly improbable that we shall ever discover evidence of the origins of Indo-Aryan art, especially of temple architecture, other than that which is disclosed in the existing early monuments and in the surviving traditions of Indian craftsmanship. ”

“ It is star-shaped in plan, with sixteen points, and had a porch, now so entirely ruined and covered up with vegetation that it is difficult to make out its plan. Its roof is conical, and from the basement to the summit it is covered with sculptures of the very best class of Indian art, and these so arranged as not materially to interfere with the outlines of the building, while they impart to it an amount of richness only to be found among specimens of Hindu art. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is altogether uncongenial to the oriental mind, and is copied only for the same reason that induces a Marwari matron to blacken her lips and teeth, because it is better to submit to a disfigurement than to be out of the fashion and thus we come to an adequate explanation of the mistaken ideą, which so many people entertain, that architecture in India is no longer a living art. ”

“ They display an exuberance of fancy, a lavishness of labour, and an elaboration of detail to be found nowhere else.” Besides, if anywhere the history of a country is imprinted in its architecture, it is in India that it throws the most continuous, distinct and varied light on that history. ”

“ One might therefore expect that the attempts made by religious reformers to reconcile points of controversy would find expression in the development of temple architecture. The early Vaishnava movement in Northern India is recorded architecturally in the sikharas of the so-called "Indo-Aryan style," and the early Saiva movement in Southern India is the stūpa-tower of the "Dravidian style." ”

“ By combining the poverty of western invention with the clumsiness of eastern technique, the characteristic virtues of both races are sacrificed. Yet, this is the plan which is systematically adopted throughout British India. The design for a new church or town-hall is supplied by an English engineer, who openly avows his ignorance of architecture; while the execution is left to native workmen. ”