CH 6 TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE (Part-2)
⭐Mind Map
- Unlike the nagara temple, the dravida temple is enclosed within a compound wall. The front wall has an entrance gateway in its centre, which is known as a gopuram.
- The shape of the main temple tower known as vimana in Tamil Nadu is like a stepped pyramid that rises up geometrically rather than the curving shikhara of North India.
- In the South Indian temple, the word ‘shikhara’ is used only for the crowning element at the top of the temple which is usually shaped like a small stupika or an octagonal cupola— this is equivalent to the amlak and kalasha of North Indian temples.
- Whereas at the entrance to the North Indian temple’s garbhagriha, it would be usual to find images such as mithunas and the river goddesses, Ganga and Yamuna, in the south you will generally find sculptures of fierce dvarapalas or the door-keepers guarding the temple.
- It is common to find a large water reservoir, or a temple tank, enclosed within the complex.
- Subsidiary shrines are either incorporated within the main temple tower, or located as distinct, separate small shrines beside the main temple.
- The North Indian idea of multiple shikharas rising together as a cluster was not popular in South India.
- At some of the most sacred temples in South India, the main temple in which the garbhagriha is situated has, in fact, one of the smallest towers.
- This is because it is usually the oldest part of the temple.
- With the passage of time, the population and size of the town associated with that temple would have increased, and it would have become necessary to make a new boundary wall around the temple.
- This would have been taller that the last one, and its gopurams would have been even loftier.
- So, for instance, the Srirangam temple in Tiruchirapally has as many as seven ‘concentric’ rectangular enclosure walls, each with gopurams.
- The outermost is the newest, while the tower right in the centre housing the garbhagriha is the oldest.
- Temples thus started becoming the focus of urban architecture.
- Kanchipuram, Thanjavur or Tanjore, Madurai and Kumbakonam are the most famous temple towns of Tamil Nadu, where, during the eighth to twelfth centuries, the role of the temple was not limited to religious matters alone.
- Temples became rich administrative centres, controlling vast areas of land.
- Just as there are many subdivisions of the main types of nagara temples, there are subdivisions also of dravida temples.
- These are basically of five different shapes: square, usually called kuta, and also caturasra; rectangular or shala or ayatasra; elliptical, called gaja-prishta or elephantbacked, or also called vrittayata, deriving from wagonvaulted shapes of apsidal chaityas with a horse-shoe shaped entrance facade usually called a nasi; circular or vritta; and octagonal or ashtasra.
- Generally speaking, the plan of the temple and the shape of the vimana were conditioned by the iconographic nature of the consecrated deity, so it was appropriate to build specific types of temples for specific types of icons.
- It must, however, be remembered that this is a simplistic differentiation of the subdivisions.
- Several different shapes may be combined in specific periods and places to create their own unique style.
- The Pallavas were one of the ancient South Indian dynasties that were active in the Andhra region from the second century CE onwards and moved south to settle in Tamil Nadu.
- Their history is better documented from the sixth to the eighth century, when they left many inscriptions in stone and several monuments.
- Their powerful kings spread their empire to various parts of the subcontinent, at times reaching the borders of Odisha, and their links with South–East Asia were also strong.
- Although they were mostly Shaivite, several Vaishnava shrines also survived from their reign, and there is no doubt that they were influenced by the long Buddhist history of the Deccan.
- Their early buildings, it is generally assumed, were rockcut, while the later ones were structural.
- However, there is reason to believe that structural buildings were well known even when rock-cut ones were being excavated.
- The early buildings are generally attributed to the reign of Mahendravarman I, a contemporary of the Chalukyan king, Pulakesin II of Karnataka.
- Narasimhavarman I, also known as Mamalla, who acceded the Pallava throne around 640 CE, is celebrated for the expansion of the empire, avenging the defeat his father had suffered at the hands of Pulakesin II, and inaugurating most of the building works at Mahabalipuram which is known after him as Mamallapuram.
- The shore temple at Mahabalipuram was built later, probably in the reign of Narasimhavarman II, also known as Rajasimha who reigned from 700 to 728 CE.
- Now it is oriented to the east facing the ocean, but if you study it closely, you will find that it actually houses three shrines, two to Shiva, one facing east and the other west, and a middle one to Vishnu who is shown as Anantashayana.
- This is unusual, because temples generally have a single main shrine and not three areas of worship.
- This shows that it was probably not originally conceived like this and different shrines may have been added at different times, modified perhaps with the change of patrons.
- In the compound there is evidence of a water tank, an early example of a gopuram, and several other images.
- Sculptures of the bull, Nandi, Shiva’s mount, line the temple walls, and these, along with the carvings on the temple’s lower walls have suffered severe disfiguration due to erosion by salt-water laden air over the centuries.
- The magnificent Shiva temple of Thanjavur, called the Rajarajeswara or Brahadeeshwarar temple, was completed around 1009 by Rajaraja Chola, and is the largest and tallest of all Indian temples.
- Temple building was prolific at this time, and over a hundred important temples of the Chola period are in a good state of preservation, and many more are still active shrines.
- Bigger in scale than anything built by their predecessors, the Pallavas, Chalukyas or Pandyas, this Chola temple’s pyramidal multi-storeyed vimana rises a massive, 70 metre (230 ft. approx) structure topped by a monolithic shikhara which is an octagonal dome-shaped stupika.
- It is in this temple that one notices for the first time two large gopuras (gateway towers) with an elaborate sculptural programme which was conceived along with the temple.
- Huge Nandi-figures dot the corners of the shikhara, and the kalasha on top by itself is about three metres and eight centimetres in height.
- Hundreds of stucco figures decorate the vimana, although it is possible that some of these may have been added on during the Maratha Period and did not always belong to the Chola Period.
- The main deity of the temple is Shiva, who is shown as a huge lingam set in a two-storeyed sanctum.
- The walls surrounding the sanctum have extended mythological narratives which are depicted through painted murals and sculptures.
- Many different styles of temple architecture influenced by both North and South Indian temples were used in regions like Karnataka.
- While some scholars consider the buildings in this region as being distinctly either nagara or dravida, a hybridised style that seems to have become popular after the mid-seventh century, is known in some ancient texts as vesara.
- By the late seventh or the early eighth century, the ambitious projects at Ellora became even grander.
- By about 750 CE, the early western Chalukya control of the Deccan was taken by the Rashtrakutas.
- Their greatest achievement in architecture is the Kailashnath temple at Ellora, a culmination of at least a millennium-long tradition in rock-cut architecture in India.
- It is a complete dravida building with a Nandi shrine—since the temple is dedicated to Shiva—a gopuram-like gateway, surrounding cloisters, subsidiary shrines, staircases and an imposing tower or vimana rising to thirty metres.
- Importantly, all of this is carved out of living rock.
- One portion of the monolithic hill was carved patiently to build the Kailashnath temple.
- The sculpture of the Rashtrakuta phase at Ellora is dynamic, the figures often larger than life-size, infused with unparalleled grandeur and the most overwhelming energy.
- In the southern part of the Deccan, i.e., in the region of Karnataka is where some of the most experimental hybrid styles of vesara architecture are to be found.
- Pulakesin I established the western Chalukya kingdom when he secured the land around Badami in 543.
- The early western Chalukyas ruled most of the Deccan till the mideighth century when they were superseded by the Rashtrakutas.
- Early Chalukyan activity also takes the form of rock-cut caves while later activity is of structural temples.
- The earliest is probably the Ravana Phadi cave at Aihole which is known for its distinctive sculptural style.
- One of the most important sculptures at the site is of Nataraja, surrounded by larger-than-life-size depictions of the saptamatrikas: three to Shiva’s left and four to his right.
- The figures are characterised by graceful, slim bodies, long, oval faces topped with extremely tall cylindrical crowns and shown to wear short dhotis marked by fine incised striations indicating pleating.
- They are distinctly different from contemporary western Deccan or Vakataka styles seen at places such as Paunar and Ramtek in Maharashtra.
- The hybridisation and incorporation of several styles was the hallmark of Chalukyan buildings.
- The most elaborate of all Chalukyan temples at Pattadakal made in the reign of Vikramaditya II (733-44) by his chief queen Loka Mahadevi is Virupaksha temple.
- Another important temple from this site is Papnath temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva.
- The temple is one of the best early examples of the Dravida tradition.
- By contrast other eastern Chalukyan Temples, like the Mahakuta, five kilometres from Badami, and the Swarga Brahma temple at Alampur show a greater assimilation of northern styles from Odisha and Rajasthan.
- At the same time the Durga temple at Aihole is unique having an even earlier style of an apsidal shrine which is reminiscent of Buddhist chaitya halls and is surrounded by a veranda of a later kind, with a shikhara that is stylistically like a nagara one.
- Finally, mention must be made of the Lad Khan temple at Aihole in Karnataka.
- This seems to be inspired by the wooden roofed temples of the hills, except that it is constructed out of stone.
- How then shall we understand these different styles at one place? As curiosities or as innovations? Undoubtedly, they are dynamic expressions of a creative set of architects who were competing with their peers in the rest of India.
- Whatever one’s explanation is, these buildings remain of great art-historical interest.
- With the waning of Chola and Pandya power, the Hoysalas of Karnataka grew to prominence in South India and became the most important patrons centred at Mysore.
- The remains of around hundred temples have been found in southern Deccan, though it is only three of them that are most frequently discussed: the temples at Belur, Halebid and Somnathpuram.
- Perhaps the most characteristic feature of these temples is that they grow extremely complex with so many projecting angles emerging from the previously straightforward square temple, that the plan of these temples starts looking like a star, and is thus known as a stellate-plan.
- Since they are made out of soapstone which is a relatively soft stone, the artists were able to carve their sculptures intricately.
- This can be seen particularly in the jewellery of the gods that adorn their temple walls.
- The Hoysaleshvara temple (Lord of the Hoysalas) at Halebid in Karnataka was built in dark schist stone by the Hoysala king in 1150.
- Hoysala temples are sometimes called hybrid or vesara as their unique style seems neither completely dravida nor nagara, but somewhere in between.
- They are easily distinguishable from other medieval temples by their highly original star-like ground-plans and a profusion of decorative carvings.
- Dedicated to Shiva as Nataraja, the Halebid temple is a double building with a large hall for the mandapa to facilitate music and dance.
- A Nandi pavilion precedes each building. The tower of the temple here and at nearby Belur fell long ago, and an idea of the temples' appearance can now only be gleaned from their detailed miniature versions flanking the entrances.
- From the central square plan cut-out angular projections create the star effect decorated with the most profuse carvings of animals and deities.
- So intricate is the carving that it is said, for instance, in the bottom-most frieze featuring a continuous procession of hundreds of elephants with their mahouts, no two elephants are in the same pose.
- Founded in 1336, Vijayanagara, literally ‘city of victory’, attracted a number of international travellers such as the Italian, Niccolo di Conti, the Portuguese Domingo Paes, Fernao Nuniz and Duarte Barbosa and the Afghan Abd al-Razzaq, who have left vivid accounts of the city.
- In addition, various Sanskrit and Telugu works document the vibrant literary tradition of this kingdom.
- Architecturally, Vijayanagara synthesises the centuries-old dravida temple architecture with Islamic styles demonstrated by the neighbouring sultanates.
- Their sculpture too, although fundamentally derived from, and consciously seeking to recreate Chola ideals, occasionally shows the presence of foreigners.
- Their eclectic ruins from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries preserve a fascinating time in history, an age of wealth, exploration and cultural fusion.
⭐BUDDHIST AND JAIN ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENTS
- So far, although we have focused on the nature of developments in Hindu architecture from the fifth to fourteenth centuries, it must constantly be kept in mind that this was also the very period when Buddhist and Jain developments were equally vibrant, and often went handin-glove with Hindu ones. Sites such as Ellora have Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monuments; however, Badami, Khajuraho and Kannauj have the remains of any two of the religions right next to each other.
- When the Gupta empire crumbled in the sixth century CE, this eastern region of Bihar and Bengal, historically known as Magadha, appears to have remained unified whilst numerous small Rajput principalities sprang up to the west. In the eighth century, the Palas came to power in the region. The second Pala ruler, Dharmapala, became immensely powerful and established an empire by defeating the powerful Rajput Pratiharas. Dharmapala consolidated an empire whose wealth lay in a combination of agriculture along the fertile Ganges plain and international trade.
- The pre-eminent Buddhist site is, of course, Bodhgaya.
- Bodhgaya is a pilgrimage site since Siddhartha achieved enlightenment here and became Gautama Buddha.
- While the bodhi tree is of immense importance, the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodhgaya is an important reminder of the brickwork of that time.
- The first shrine here, located at the base of the Bodhi tree, is said to have been constructed by King Ashoka; the vedika around it is said to be post-Mauryan, of about 100 BCE; many of the sculptures in the niches in the temple are dated to the eighth century Pala Period, while the actual Mahabodhi temple itself as it stands now is largely a Colonial Period reconstruction of the old seventh century design.
- The design of the temple is unusual.
- It is, strictly speaking, neither dravida or nagara.
- It is narrow like a nagara temple, but it rises without curving, like a dravida one.
- The monastic university of Nalanda is a mahavihara as it is a complex of several monastries of various sizes.
- Till date, only a small portion of this ancient learning centre has been excavated as most of it lies buried under contemporary civilisation, making further excavations almost impossible.
- Most of the information about Nalanda is based on the records of Xuan Zang—previously spelt as ‘Hsuan-tsang’— which states that the foundation of a monastery was laid by Kumargupta I in the fifth century CE; and this was carried forward by the later monarchs who built up a fantastic university here.
- There is evidence that all three Buddhist doctrines— Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana—were taught here and monks made their way to Nalanda and its neighbouring sites of Bodhgaya and Kurkihar from China, Tibet and Central Asia in the north, and Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma and various other countries from the south-eastern parts of Asia.
- Monks and pilgrims would take back small sculptures and illustrated manuscripts from here to their own countries.
- Buddhist monasteries like Nalanda, thus, were prolific centres of art production that had a decisive impact on the arts of all Buddhist countries in Asia.
- The sculptural art of Nalanda, in stucco, stone and bronze, developed out of a heavy dependence on the Buddhist Gupta art of Sarnath.
- By the ninth century a synthesis occurred between the Sarnath Gupta idiom, the local Bihar tradition, and that of central India, leading to the formation of the Nalanda school of sculpture characterised by distinctive facial features, body forms and treatment of clothing and jewellery.
- The characteristic features of Nalanda art, distinguished by its consistently high quality of workmanship, are that the precisely executed sculptures have an ordered appearance with little effect of crowding.
- Sculptures are also usually not flat in relief but are depicted in three-dimensional forms.
- The back slabs of the sculptures are detailed and the ornamentations delicate.
- The Nalanda bronzes, dating between the seventh and eighth centuries to approximately the twelfth century outnumber the discovery of metal images from all other sites of eastern India and constitute a large body of Pala Period metal sculptures.
- Like their stone counterparts, the bronzes initially relied heavily on Sarnath and Mathura Gupta traditions.
- The Nalanda sculptures initially depict Buddhist deities of the Mahayana pantheon such as standing Buddhas, bodhisattvas such as Manjusri Kumara, Avalokiteshvara seated on a lotus and Naga-Nagarjuna.
- During the late eleventh and twelveth centuries, when Nalanda emerged as an important tantric centre, the repertoire came to be dominated by Vajrayana deities such as Vajrasharada (a form of Saraswati) Khasarpana, Avalokiteshvara, etc.
- Depictions of crowned Buddhas occur commonly only after the tenth century.
- Interestingly, various brahmanical images not conforming to the Sarnath style have also been found at Nalanda, many of which are still worshipped in small temples in villages around the site.
- Sirpur in Chhattisgarh is an early-Odisha style site belonging to the period between 550 and 800, with both Hindu and Buddhist shrines.
- In many ways the iconographic and stylistic elements of the Buddhist sculptures here are similar to that of Nalanda.
- Later other major Buddhist monasteries developed in Odisha. Lalitagiri, Vajragiri and Ratnagiri are the most famous of them.
- The port-town of Nagapattinam was also a major Buddhist centre right until the Chola Period.
- One of the reasons for this must have been its importance in trade with Sri Lanka where large numbers of Buddhists still live.
- Bronze and stone sculptures in Chola style have come to light at Nagapattinam and generally date back to the tenth century.
- Jains were prolific temple builders like the Hindus, and their sacred shrines and pilgrimage spots are to be found across the length and breadth of India except in the hills.
- The oldest Jain pilgrimage sites are to be found in Bihar. Many of these sites are famous for early Buddhist shrines.
- In the Deccan, some of the most architecturally important Jain sites can be found in Ellora and Aihole.
- In central India, Deogarh, Khajuraho, Chanderi and Gwalior have some excellent examples of Jain temples.
- Karnataka has a rich heritage of Jain shrines and at Sravana Belagola the famous statue of Gomateshwara, the granite statue of Lord Bahubali which stands eighteen metres or fifty-seven feet high, is the world’s tallest monolithic free-standing structure.
- It was commissioned by Camundaraya, the General-in-Chief and Prime Minister of the Ganga Kings of Mysore.
- The Jain temples at Mount Abu were constructed by Vimal Shah.
- Notable for a simplistic exterior in contrast with the exuberant marble interiors, their rich sculptural decoration with deep undercutting creates a lace-like appearance.
- The temple is famous for its unique patterns on every ceiling, and the graceful bracket figures along the domed ceilings.
- The great Jain pilgrimage site in the Shatrunjay hills near Palitana in Kathiawar, Gujarat, is imposing with scores of temples clustered together.
- In this chapter we have read about the prolific sculptural and architectural remains in different types of stone, terracotta and bronze from the fifth to the fourteenth centuries.
- Undoubtedly there would have been sculptures made of other media like silver and gold, but these would have been melted down and reused.
- Many sculptures would also have been made of wood and ivory, but these have perished because of their fragility.
- Often sculptures would have been painted, but again, pigments cannot always survive hundreds of years, especially if the sculptures were exposed to the elements.
- There was also a rich tradition of painting at this time, but the only examples that survive from this period are murals in a few religious buildings.
- A large number of bronze scupltures have been found in the country which shall be discussed in the next chapter.
- We have focussed on the dominant art styles and some of the most famous monuments from different parts of India in the medieval period.
- It is important to realise that the enormous artistic achievements that we have studied here would never have been possible if artists worked alone.
- These large projects would have brought architects, builders, sculptors and painters together.
- Above all, by studying these artworks, we are able to learn much about the kind of society that made these objects.
- Through them we can surmise what their buildings were like, what types of clothes they wore and above all we can use the art material to reconstruct the history of their religions.
- These religions, as we have seen were many and diverse and constantly changing. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism each have a plethora of gods and goddesses, and this was the period when bhakti and tantra — two major developments, affected them.
- Temples also became a space for many other art forms, such as music and dance and, from the tenth century onwards, temples became large landowners as kings and feudal lords gave them land for their maintenance once and upkeep, and performed an administrative role as well.
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