Hindu Architecture

The monuments erected by Mohammedans are by far the most ma ive, important, and costly buildings in India. Though often modified by a mixture of local elements, in the main they belong to the style imported by the invaders (see SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE). The indigenous styles of India are mainly two, the Buddhist and the Jain. The former does not antedate 300 B.C. Buddhist monuments are found in all parts of India, in Ceylon, and n. as far as the Punjaub. They are all, properly, religious monuments, but vary greatly in special purpose, and therefore in form. They include inscribed pillars, called lâts, topes, towers having interiors, rails or gateways, chaityas or temples and monasteries. One of the best known of the lats is at Allah a bad, a shaft shaped like a mast, bearing an inscription and also a necking composed of the honeysuckle ornament, originated in As syria and frequently employed in Grecian architecture. This shaft is a monolith 33 ft. in length and tapering from 3 ft. to 2 ft. Chandler's Encyclopedia nally crowned with the grotesque figure of an animal. The topes were primarily shrines designed to contain relics of Buddha or other sacred objects. The largest and best preserved is the great tope at Sanchi, a domed circular building of masonry, 106 ft. in diameter and 42 ft. in height. The gateway is a rail resembling the gates of honor found in China and Japan, but in this instance having three cro pieces connected by the uprights. The antiquity of the topes is estimated to vary from 250 B.C. to 1200. The outsides are commonly plain, except for the gateways. The interiors are often elaborately decorated with carving, of which the artistic merit is slight. The gateways, or rails, are profusely but tastefully decorated. The chaityas, or temples, are, with one exception, excavated and not constructed. The best known of them, the cave temple at Ellera, is 85x43 ft. The entrance is in the form of a rude and ma ive linteled opening, supported by pillars. The monasteries are also rock-cut. There are, however, examples of constructed temples in the form of pyramids receding by terraces from a vertical base, and richly ornamented, though of small artistic value. The so-called Jain architecture is not older than the 10th century, while the Buddhist monuments had at that period almost ceased to be erected. In the kind of erections there is a strong similarity between the two styles. The later, however, is much more admired in respect of construction. The Jains used the arch form, though they did not build true arches with radiating joints, but merely projected from the sides of an opening overlapping layers of stone until they met at the top and closed the opening. The most peculiar of the Jain monuments is a tower, or sikra, of which the inclosing walls are curved outward. In addition there are remains of colonnades resembling Greek porticoes in arrangement, but without attached buildings. The proportions of these monuments are seldom just or felicitous, but the ornamentation, though barbaric, shows much inventivene . Jain building in the n. of India continued until ab. 1750, or the eve of the British conquest; the most extensive and ambitious temples belong to this period. In some of them there is an evident infusion of the Saracenic style, while others are almost entirely free from Mohammedan influence.