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    An Illustrated Handbook of Hindu Temple Architecture - The Temples of Northern and Southern India
    An Illustrated Handbook of Hindu Temple Architecture - The Temples of Northern and Southern India
    An Illustrated Handbook of Hindu Temple Architecture - The Temples of Northern and Southern India
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    An Illustrated Handbook of Hindu Temple Architecture - The Temples of Northern and Southern India

    By Anon Anon

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    About this ebook

    A wonderful guide to the stunning temple architecture of India. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781473358980
    An Illustrated Handbook of Hindu Temple Architecture - The Temples of Northern and Southern India

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      Book preview

      An Illustrated Handbook of Hindu Temple Architecture - The Temples of Northern and Southern India - Anon Anon

      HINDU ARCHITECTURE.

      CHAPTER I.

      SOUTHERN HINDU.

      CONTENTS.

      Historical notices — Form of Temples — Porches of Temples — Gateways — Pillared Halls — Temples at Seringham, Trivalur, Tinnevelly, &c. — Kylas at Ellora — Construction of Rock-cut Temples — Modern Hindu style in the South.

      CHRONOLOGY.

      THE architecture of the Hindus may be divided into three perfectly distinct, though contemporary, styles. The first being the Southern Hindu—that practised by the Tamul races of the south—and wholly confined to the countries lying between Cape Comorin and the Nerbuddha or Vindya range.

      The second, the Northern or Arian Hindu, found only between the Himalaya and the northern boundary of the last-mentioned style, in the countries into which the Arian or Sanscrit-speaking races penetrated, and where they settled, which are now known as the Bengal Presidency.

      The third style is found only in Cashmere and the Punjab; it differs considerably from the other two, though possessing more similarity to the southern style than to that which intervenes between them.

      Of the Northern Hindu style we have very few remains, and we shall hereafter see reason to believe that the art of temple-building never was practised in the North nearly to the extent which we find to have prevailed in the South.

      There is perhaps no country in the world where temple-building has received so extraordinary a development as in the south of India, taking the amount and the circumstances of the population into account. At no period of their history did the Tamul races rise to anything like importance politically, nor have we any reason for believing that these countries were ever more populous than they are at present. In literature they have done nothing original, all that they possess being borrowed directly from the Sanscrit of the Arian races of the north. In science, it need scarcely be added, they have made no advance whatever. Yet this country is covered with temples which, for extent and amount of labour bestowed on them, may rival Karnac and the most extensive temples of Egypt, and surpass even the cathedrals of the middle ages in complexity of design and variety of detail. Their relative merit as works of art is another question, which must I fear be decided against them; but, as specimens of patient devotional labour, they, so far as I know, stand as yet unrivalled in the architectural history of the world.

      HISTORICAL NOTICE.

      If a line be drawn east and west from Madras to Mangalore, it will cut off a portion of India forming nearly an equilateral triangle of 400 miles a side, within which are situated almost all the great temples of Southern India.

      To the north of this line the country seems never to have been sufficiently thickly peopled, at least in ancient times, for any rich or powerful states to have been established within its boundaries. Consequently, we do not find many temples there, and those that are known to exist have been so imperfectly drawn or described that they cannot at present be rendered available for elucidating the history of the style.

      The country to the south of this line has from the earliest times been inhabited (above the Ghâts at least) by people of the pure Tamul race, who, so far as we know, are aboriginal in the country. As far as their traditions reach they have been divided into three kingdoms or states, the Pandyas, the Cholas, and the Cheras, forming a little triarchy of powers, neither interfered with by the other nations of the earth, nor interfering with those beyond their limits. During the greater part of their existence all their relations of war and peace have been among themselves, and they have grown up a separate people, as unlike the rest of the world as can well be conceived.

      Of the three, the most southern was called the Pandyan kingdom, and was the earliest civilized, and seems to have attained sufficient importance about the time of the Christian era to have attracted the special attention of the Greek and Roman geographers. How much earlier it became a state, or had a regular succession of rulers, we know not,¹ but it seems certainly to have attained to some consistency as early as five or six centuries before the Christian era, and maintained itself within its original boundaries, till in the middle of the last century it was swallowed up in our all-devouring aggression.

      During this long period the Pandyans had several epochs of great brilliancy and power, followed by long intervening periods of depression and obscurity. The first and fifth or sixth centuries seem to have been those when they especially distinguished themselves. If buildings of these epochs still exist in the country, of which I see no improbability, they are utterly unknown as yet, as well as all those of the intervening periods down to the reign of Trimul Naik, A.D. 1624. This prince adorned the capital city of Madura with many splendid buildings, some of which have been drawn by Daniell and others. What more ancient remains there may be will not be known till the place has been carefully and scientifically explored.

      The Chola

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