I.-Temple Types in Tirhut. By D. B. Spooner, B.A., Ph.D. In his great "History of Indian and Eastern Architecture" Fergusson classifies all Hindu temple-forms under one or other of three styles, which he designates Dravidian, Chalukyan and Indo-Aryan or Northern. The great Lingaraj temple at Bhuvaneswar (Plate A) and the more famous Black Pagoda at Konārak are his principal examples of the third or Indo-Aryan style, and Fergusson asserts that he has devoted more time to a consideration of the origin and development of this architectural form than to any other problem in connexion with his work, but nevertheless without reaching any satisfactory solution. Speaking of the temple type in Orissan architecture, which according to him is the norm for Northern India, Fergusson gives one to understand that its essential characteristics are a square cella for the image, indicated externally by a tall tower, which tower is always curvilinear, never shows any trace of storeys, and is surmounted by that massive circular coping stone which is known as the amalaka, on which finally rests the finial Lecture delivered before the Bihar and Orissa Research Society at Patna in February 1916, or kalasa. To the sikhara or tower so constructed there may be and usually is added a porch or jagamohan, with sometimes other similar adjuncts. But temples of this style are essentially tripartite as described, and their main characteristic is their curvilinear outline. This appears to be the form already stereotyped in the oldest known examples in North India, and Fergusson, beyond suggesting that their peculiarities were a structural necessity, leaves the problem of origin unsolved. If this is true of the oldest specimens of this type, it is, if possible, still more so of what Fergusson looks upon as the latest, most modern development of this general class, which he illustrates with a modern "Bengal temple", as he calls it, in Benares (Plate B). "This Bengal example," he tells us, (Vol. II, page 90), "recalls nothing known in civil or domestic architecture. Neither the pyramid nor the tumulus affords any suggestion as to the origin of the form, nor does the tower, either square or circular; nor does any form of civil or domestic architecture. It does not seem to be derived from any of these and, whether we consider it as beautiful or otherwise, it seems certainly to have been invented principally at least for æsthetic purposes, and to have retained that 'impress from the earliest till the present day". Elsewhere (Vol. I, page 326), he suggests that some day the discovery of some earlier example than any now known may render the evolution clearer, but beyond his suggestion of constructional necessity he was not himself able to go. It is the purpose of the present paper to propound a solution of the problem so simple that Fergusson completely overlooked it, despite his obvious knowledge of the facts. First of all I wish to question Fergusson's conclusion that his so-called Bengal temple in Benares is a lineal descendant of the Orissan type. This paper does not deal with these Orissan forms, and I will therefore not discuss here the special problems attaching to the history of their development; but I am persuaded that the Benares type which Fergusson illustrates is not to be derived from any such beginnings, and I suspect that it was primarily because of this initial misconception that Fergusson, with all his unparalleled knowledge of the subject, failed to trace the origin and growth he sought. But however diverse in history this form of northern, or as I will henceforth call it, Tirhut type of temple may be, it too is essentially tripartite, and consists as a rule of cella, tower and porch, which latter element is obviously a later adjunct to the structure. In the simplest form in which this sort of temple could appear, in point of theory, we should have a small square room, to contain the sacred image, with a more or less ordinary roof, sloped to keep the rain off, and in course of time, a narrow portico in front to keep the fierceness of the sun from entering the shrine. Such a structure as this would be about the simplest form of house we could imagine, granting these three elements as essential, and we will take this as our theoretical starting point, although it is evident that there is nothing curvilinear about it, and that such a primitive type of structure is remote indeed from, say, the Black Pagoda at Konārak. Nor will the development which I mean to trace bring us at any point nearer to this building in essentials. Now in studying architectural developments, it is usually assumed, I believe, that if we could arrange all our temples in order of their dates, their development would stand out, except for the fact that the earliest, most primitive types are supposed to have died out and to be thus no longer adducible. There is, of course, some truth in this assertion. If we had an unbroken series from the beginning, and knew their dates, the tracing of the development would doubtless be easy enough. In Tirhut, however, such a proceeding is certainly not possible, because, in the first place, there are extremely few temples of any real antiquity, (certainly none at all of the remote past), and the dates of those which do exist are not readily determinable in most cases. If then we are to trace this development in the buildings of this region to-day, it will be due in the main to the falsity of the assumption that the primitive types have ceased. We must bear in mind, however, that the assumption is not altogether false. Close approxima tions exist to these earliest forms, as we shall see, but they are all modern structures, in themselves, and render the enquiry less easy than it might have been. But if the modernity of our documents be remembered, and due allowance made for this circumstance, the difficulties will be in no sense insuperable. We must not, however, expect our modern structures to illustrate in each and every particular the precise stage of the development which the logic of the temples as a whole will put before us, at each given point. It is for considerations such as these that it is not now possible to illustrate among the temples extant in Tirhut to-day any of exactly the most primitive type I have taken theoretically as our starting point in this enquiry. But we see what is essentially the same in certain rude little shrines at Sonpur (Plate I). Here, as in the structure which we have hypothecated, we see a simple square chamber, constituting the cella, with a simple, ordinary roof, rising to a point, and with a narrow porch in front. These are the constituents of our simplest form of temple, and in the present example we find them in as simple forms as now are traceable among the existing and recorded monuments. It will be admitted that in primitiveness they are almost all that could be wished. They show, however, one feature which is regrettable namely the false arches applied decoratively to the sides of the cella wall. These are, of course, extremely modern elements, their ornamental cusps betraying Muhammadan influence, and they render the monument less suitable for our present purposes than could be wished. However, if we eliminate this feature, and consider for the moment that these arches are not there (they are of course wholly non-essential), we shall have the primitive type we postulate, with perfectly plain, undecorated walls, and an equally undecorated pointed roof, square in plan, as is the cella proper. It was this very circumstance of the plainness of these surfaces which, so far as I can judge, gave rise in course of time to the entire development which we seek to trace. Nowhere are the beauties of the play of light and shade more appreciated than in India, whether because of the brightness of the sun or because of the innate æstheticism of the Hindu heart I cannot say. At all events, the Hindu has never been unmindful of this feature, and an aesthetic utilization of shadow is a conspicuous part of the beauty of most, if not all, Indian monuments. The monotonous expanse of this plain wall, calculated in Indian conditions to become a mere intolerable glare, was not long endurable, we may be sure. The builder sought to diversify this surface accordingly, with a view, so I conceive, of introducing shadow, and to this end conceived the simple, but epoch-making expedient of advancing the central portion of his wall a little way (Plate 2). By building out a central projection of this kind, he at once broke his plain surface by distributing it in two planes, and thereby gained the desiderated shadow. But let us now observe that even in this most modern of examples, a striking characteristic of the building is its prevailing lack of eaves. There is, to be sure, a slight projection around the top of the wall, intermediate between it and the actual roof, but it is in no sense conspicuous, and, in the most primitive examples, may not have existed at all. I rather infer that it did not exist, originally, because in the case of the Shiva temple at Padram, in Sāran District, where we see the first instance of the projection on the cella wall of which I speak, we find that the contour of this projection has been followed up into the region of the roof as well, and that its outer edge here also conforms, very naturally, to the configuration of this roof, running parallel to the edge again. This result would have been not only facilitated by the absence of eaves, it would have been rendered almost a constructional necessity, for, with the side wall distributed in two planes, as it is here, the roof, if rising from the inner one of these planes, only, would have left the top portion of the second one bare, unfinished and objectionable. But so slight a rim as surrounds the top of the wall in this temple at Padram would not have prevented the carrying of the outline into the region of the roof, even if we assume that it or its counterpart did actually exist in prehistoric instances. |