Chapter II: Preface

During the nine years that have elapsed since I last wrote on this subject,[1] very considerable progress has been made in the elucidation of many of the problems that still perplex the student of the History of Indian Architecture. The publication of the five volumes of General Cunningham’s ‘Archæological Reports’ has thrown new light on many obscure points, but generally from an archæological rather than from an architectural point of view; and Mr. Burgess’s researches among the western caves and the structural temples of the Bombay presidency have added greatly not only to our stores of information, but to the precision of our knowledge regarding them.

For the purpose of such a work as this, however, photography has probably done more than anything that has been written. There are now very few buildings in India--of any importance at least--which have not been photographed with more or less completeness; and for purposes of comparison such collections of photographs as are now available are simply invaluable. For detecting similarities, or distinguishing differences between specimens situated at distances from one another, photographs are almost equal to actual personal inspection, and, when sufficiently numerous, afford a picture of Indian art of the utmost importance to anyone attempting to describe it.

These new aids, added to our previous stock of knowledge, are probably sufficient to justify us in treating the architecture of India Proper in the quasi-exhaustive manner in which it is attempted, in the first 600 pages of this work. Its description might, of course, be easily extended even beyond these limits, but without plans and more accurate architectural details than we at present possess, any such additions would practically contribute very little that was valuable to the information the work already contains.

The case is different when we turn to Further India. Instead of only 150 pages and 50 illustrations, both these figures ought at least to be doubled to bring that branch of the subject up to the same stage of completeness as that describing the architecture of India Proper. For this, however, the materials do not at present exist. Of Japan we know almost nothing except from photographs, without plans, dimensions, or dates; and, except as regards Pekin and the Treaty Ports, we know almost as little of China. We know a great deal about one or two buildings in Cambodia and Java, but our information regarding all the rest is so fragmentary and incomplete, that it is hardly available for the purposes of a general history, and the same may be said of Burmah and Siam. Ten years hence this deficiency may be supplied, and it may then be possible to bring the whole into harmony. At present a slight sketch indicating the relative position of each, and their relation to the styles of India Proper, is all that can well be accomplished.

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Although appearing as the third volume of the second edition of the ‘General History of Architecture,’ the present may be considered as an independent and original work. In the last edition the Indian chapters extended only to about 300 pages, with 200 illustrations,[2] and though most of the woodcuts reappear in the present volume, more than half the original text has been cancelled, and consequently at least 600 pages of the present work are original matter, and 200 illustrations--and these by far the most important--have been added. These, with the new chronological and topographical details, present the subject to the English reader in a more compact and complete form than has been attempted in any work on Indian architecture hitherto published. It does not, as I feel only too keenly, contain all the information that could be desired, but I am afraid it contains nearly all that the materials at present available will admit of being utilised, in a general history of the style.

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When I published my first work on Indian architecture thirty years ago, I was reproached for making dogmatic assertions, and propounding theories which I did not even attempt to sustain. The defect was, I am afraid, inevitable. My conclusions were based upon the examination of the actual buildings throughout the three Presidencies of India and in China during ten years’ residence in the East, and to have placed before the world the multitudinous details which were the ground of my generalisations, would have required an additional amount of description and engravings which was not warranted by the interest felt in the subject at that time. The numerous engravings in the present volume, the extended letterpress, and the references to works of later labourers in the wide domain of Indian architecture, will greatly diminish, but cannot entirely remove, the old objection. No man can direct his mind for forty years to the earnest investigation of any department of knowledge, and not become acquainted with a host of particulars, and acquire a species of insight which neither time, nor space, nor perhaps the resources of language will permit him to reproduce in their fulness. I possess, to give a single instance, more than 3000 photographs of Indian buildings, with which constant use has made me as familiar as with any other object that is perpetually before my eyes, and to recapitulate all the information they convey to long-continued scrutiny, would be an endless, if not indeed an impossible undertaking. The necessities of the case demand that broad results should often be given when the evidence for the statements must be merely indicated or greatly abridged, and if the conclusions sometimes go beyond the appended proofs, I can only ask my readers to believe that the assertions are not speculative fancies, but deductions from facts. My endeavour from the first has been to present a distinct view of the general principles which have governed the historical development of Indian architecture, and my hope is that those who pursue the subject beyond the pages of the present work, will find that the principles I have enunciated will reduce to order the multifarious details, and that the details in turn will confirm the principles. Though the vast amount of fresh knowledge which has gone on accumulating since I commenced my investigations has enabled me to correct, modify, and enlarge my views, yet the classification I adopted, and the historical sequences I pointed out thirty years since, have in their essential outlines been confirmed, and will continue, I trust, to stand good. Many subsidiary questions remain unsettled, but my impression is, that not a few of the discordant opinions that may be observed, arise principally from the different courses which inquirers have pursued in their investigations. Some men of great eminence and learning, more conversant with books than buildings, have naturally drawn their knowledge and inferences from written authorities, none of which are contemporaneous with the events they relate, and all of which have been avowedly altered and falsified in later times. My authorities, on the contrary, have been mainly the imperishable records in the rocks, or on sculptures and carvings, which necessarily represented at the time the faith and feelings of those who executed them, and which retain their original impress to this day. In such a country as India, the chisels of her sculptors are, so far as I can judge, immeasurably more to be trusted than the pens of her authors. These secondary points, however, may well await the solution which time and further study will doubtless supply. 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.

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The publication of this volume completes the history of the ‘Architecture in all Countries, from the earliest times to the present day, in four volumes,’ and there it must at present rest. As originally projected, it was intended to have added a fifth volume on ‘Rude Stone Monuments,’ which is still wanted to make the series quite complete; but, as explained in the preface to my work bearing that title, the subject was not, when it was written, ripe for a historical treatment, and the materials collected were consequently used in an argumentative essay. Since that work was published, in 1872, no serious examination of its arguments has been undertaken by any competent authority, while every new fact that has come to light--especially in India--has served to confirm me more and more in the correctness of the principles I then tried to establish.[3] Unless, however, the matter is taken up seriously, and re-examined by those who, from their position, have the ear of the public in these matters, no such progress will be made as would justify the publication of a second work on the same subject. I consequently see no chance of my ever having an opportunity of taking up the subject again, so as to be able to describe its objects in a more consecutive or more exhaustive manner than was done in the work just alluded to.

NOTE.

One of the great difficulties that meets every one attempting to write on Indian subjects at the present day is to know how to spell Indian proper names. The Gilchristian mode of using double vowels, which was fashionable fifty years ago, has now been entirely done away with, as contrary to the spirit of Indian orthography, though it certainly is the mode which enables the ordinary Englishman to pronounce Indian names with the greatest readiness and certainty. On the other hand, an attempt is now being made to form out of the ordinary English alphabet a more extended one, by accents over the vowels, and dots under the consonants, and other devices, so that every letter of the Devanagari or Arabic alphabets shall have an exact equivalent in this one.

In attempting to print Sanscrit or Persian books in Roman characters, such a system is indispensable, but if used for printing Indian names in English books, intended principally for the use of Englishmen, it seems to me to add not only immensely to the repulsiveness of the subject, but to lead to the most ludicrous mistakes. According to this alphabet for instance, ḍ with dot under it represents a consonant we pronounce as r; but as not one educated Englishman in 10,000 is aware of this fact, he reads such words as Kattiwaḍ, Chîtoḍ, and Himaḍpanti as if spelt literally with a d, though they are pronounced Kattiwar, Chittore, and Himarpanti, and are so written in all books hitherto published, and the two first are so spelt in all maps hitherto engraved. A hundred years hence, when Sanscrit and Indian alphabets are taught in all schools in England, it may be otherwise, but in the present state of knowledge on the subject some simpler plan seems more expedient.

In the following pages I have consequently used the Jonesian system, as nearly as may be, as it was used by Prinsep, or the late Professor Wilson, but avoiding as far as possible all accents, except over vowels where they were necessary for the pronunciation. Over such words as Nâga, Râjâ, or Hindû--as in Tree and Serpent worship--I have omitted accents altogether as wholly unnecessary for the pronunciation. An accent, however, seems indispensable over the â in Lât, to prevent it being read as Lath in English, as I have heard done, or over the î in such words as Hullabîd, to prevent its being read as short bid in English.

Names of known places I have in all instances tried to leave as they are usually spelt, and are found on maps. I have, for instance, left Oudeypore, the capital of the Rajput state, spelt as Tod and others always spelt it, but, to prevent the two places being confounded, have taken the liberty of spelling the name of a small unknown village, where there is a temple, Udaipur--though I believe the names are the same. I have tried, in short, to accommodate my spelling as nearly as possible to the present state of knowledge or ignorance of the English public, without much reference to scientific precision, as I feel sure that by this means the nomenclature may become much less repulsive than it too generally must be to the ordinary English student of Indian history and art.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION Page 3

BOOK I.

BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE.

CHAP. PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION AND CLASSIFICATION 47

II. STAMBHAS OR LÂTS 52

III. STUPAS--Bhilsa Topes--Topes at Sarnath and in Behar--Amravati Tope--Gandhara Topes--Jelalabad Topes--Manikyala Tope 57

IV. RAILS--Rails at Bharhut, Muttra Sanchi, and Amravati 84

V. CHAITYA HALLS--Behar Caves--Western Chaitya Halls, &c. 105

VI. VIHARAS OR MONASTERIES--Structural Viharas--Bengal and Western Vihara Caves--Nassick, Ajunta, Bagh, Dhumnar, Kholvi, and Ellora Viharas--Circular Cave at Junir 133

VII. GANDHARA MONASTERIES--Monasteries at Jamalgiri, Takht-i-Bahi, and Shah Dehri 169

VIII. CEYLON--Introductory--Anuradhapura--Pollonarua 185

BOOK II.

JAINA ARCHITECTURE.

I. INTRODUCTORY 207

II. CONSTRUCTION--Arches--Domes--Plans--Sikras 210

III. NORTHERN JAINA STYLE--Palitana--Girnar--Mount Abu--Parisnath--Gualior--Khajurâho 226

IV. MODERN JAINA STYLE--Jaina Temple, Delhi--Jaina Caves--Converted Mosques 255

V. JAINA STYLE IN SOUTHERN INDIA--Bettus--Bastis 265

BOOK III.

ARCHITECTURE IN THE HIMALAYAS.

I. KASHMIR--Temples--Marttand--Avantipore--Bhaniyar 279

II. NEPAL--Stupas or Chaityas--Wooden Temples--Thibet--Temples at Kangra 298

BOOK IV.

DRAVIDIAN STYLE.

I. INTRODUCTORY 319

II. DRAVIDIAN ROCK-CUT TEMPLES--Mahavellipore--Kylas, Ellora 326

III. DRAVIDIAN TEMPLES--Tanjore--Tiruvalur--Seringham--Chillambaram--Ramisseram-- Mádura--Tinnevelly--Combaconum--Conjeveram--Vellore and Peroor--Vijayanagar 340

IV. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE--Palaces at Mádura and Tanjore--Garden Pavilion at Vijayanagar 380

BOOK V.

CHALUKYAN STYLE.

I. INTRODUCTORY--Temple at Buchropully--Kirti Stambha at Worangul--Temples at Somnathpûr and Baillûr--The Kait Iswara at Hullabîd--Temple at Hullabîd 386

BOOK VI.

NORTHERN OR INDO-ARYAN STYLE.

I. INTRODUCTORY--Dravidian and Indo-Aryan Temples at Badami--Modern Temple at Benares 406

II. ORISSA--History--Temples at Bhuvaneswar, Kanaruc, Puri, Jajepur, and Cuttack 414

III. WESTERN INDIA--Dharwar--Brahmanical Rock-cut Temples 437

IV. CENTRAL AND NORTHERN INDIA--Temples at Gualior, Khajurâho, Udaipur, Benares, Bindrabun, Kantonuggur, Amritsur 448

V. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE--Cenotaphs--Palaces at Gualior, Ambêr, Deeg--Ghâts--Reservoirs--Dams 470