The material out of which this temple is erected is an indurated potstone, of volcanic origin, found in the neighbourhood. This stone is said to be soft when first quarried, and easily cut in that state, though hardening on exposure to the atmosphere. Even this, however, will not diminish our admiration of the amount of labour bestowed on the temple, for, from the number of parts still unfinished, it is evident that, like most others of its class, it was built in block, and carved long after the stone had become hard. As we now see it, the stone is of a pleasing creamy colour, and so close-grained as to take a polish like marble. The pillars of the great Nundi pavilion, which look as if they had been turned in a lathe, are so polished as to exhibit what the natives call a double reflection—in other words, to reflect light from each other. The enduring qualities of the stone seem to be unrivalled, for, though neglected and exposed to all the vicissitudes of a tropical climate for more than six centuries, the minutest details are as clear and sharp as the day they were finished. Except from the splitting of the stone arising from bad masonry, the building is as perfect as when its erection was stopped by the Mahomedan conquest.

It is, of course, impossible to illustrate completely so complicated and so varied a design; but the following woodcut (No. 226) will suffice to explain the general ordonnance of its elevation. The building stands on a terrace ranging from 5 ft. to 6 ft. in height, and paved with large slabs. On this stands a frieze of elephants, following all the sinuosities of the plan and extending to some 710 ft. in length, and containing not less than 2000 elephants, most of them with riders and trappings, sculptured as only an Oriental can represent the wisest of brutes. Above these is a frieze of “shardalas,” or conventional lions—the emblems of the Hoisala Bellalas who built the temple. Then comes a scroll of infinite beauty and variety of design; over this a frieze of horsemen and another scroll; over which is a bas-relief of scenes from the ‘Ramayana,’ representing the conquest of Ceylon and all the varied incidents of that epic. This, like the other, is about 700 ft. long. (The frieze of the Parthenon is less than 550 ft.) Then come celestial beasts and celestial birds, and all along the east front a frieze of groups from human life, and then a cornice, with a rail, divided into panels, each containing two figures. Over this are windows of pierced slabs, like those of Baillûr, though not so rich or varied. These windows will be observed on the right and left of the woodcut. In the centre, in place of the windows, is first a scroll, and then a frieze of gods and heavenly apsaras—dancing girls and other objects of Hindu mythology. This frieze, which is about 5 ft. 6 in. in height, is continued all round the western front of the building, and extends to some 400 ft. in length. Siva, with his consort Parvati seated on his knee, is repeated at least fourteen times; Vishnu in his nine Avatars even oftener. Brahma occurs three or four times, and every great god of the Hindu Pantheon finds his place. Some of these are carved with a minute elaboration of detail which can only be reproduced by photography, and may probably be considered as one of the most marvellous exhibitions of human labour to be found even in the patient East.

It must not, however, be considered that it is only for patient industry that this building is remarkable. The mode in which the eastern face is broken up by the larger masses, so as to give height and play of light and shade, is a better way of accomplishing what the Gothic architects attempted by their transepts and projections. This, however, is surpassed by the western front, where the variety of outline, and the arrangement and subordination of the various facets in which it is disposed, must be considered as a masterpiece of design in its class. If the frieze of gods were spread along a plain surface it

would lose more than half its effect, while the vertical angles, without interfering with the continuity of the frieze, give height and strength to the whole composition. The disposition of the horizontal lines of the lower friezes is equally effective. Here again the artistic combination of horizontal with vertical lines, and the play of outline and of light and shade, far surpass anything in Gothic art. The effects are just what the mediæval architects were often aiming at, but which they never attained so perfectly as was done at Hullabîd.

Before leaving Hullabîd, it may be well again to call attention to the order of superposition of the different animal friezes, alluded to already, when speaking of the rock-cut monastery described by the Chinese Pilgrims (ante, p. 135). There, as here, the lowest were the elephants; then the lions; above these came the horses; then the oxen; and the fifth storey was in the shape of a pigeon. The oxen here is replaced by a conventional animal, and the pigeon also by a bird of a species that would puzzle a naturalist. The succession, however, is the same, and, as mentioned above, the same five genera of living things form the ornaments of the moonstones of the various monuments in Ceylon. Sometimes in modern Hindu temples only two or three animal friezes are found, but the succession is always the same, the elephants being the lowest, next above them are the lions, and then the horses, &c. When we know the cause of it, it seems as if this curious selection and succession might lead to some very suggestive conclusions. At present we can only call attention to it in hopes that further investigation may afford the means of solving the mystery.

If it were possible to illustrate the Hullabîd temple to such an extent as to render its peculiarities familiar, there would be few things more interesting or more instructive than to institute a comparison between it and the Parthenon at Athens. Not that the two buildings are at all like one another; on the contrary, they form the two opposite poles—the alpha and omega of architectural design; but they are the best examples of their class, and between these two extremes lies the whole range of the art. The Parthenon is the best example we know of pure refined intellectual power applied to the production of an architectural design. Every part and every effect is calculated with mathematical exactness, and executed with a mechanical precision that never was equalled. All the curves are hyperbolas, parabolas, or other developments of the highest mathematical forms—every optical defect is foreseen and provided for, and every part has a relation to every other part in so recondite a proportion that we feel inclined to call it fanciful, because we can hardly rise to its appreciation. The sculpture is exquisitely designed to aid the perfection of the masonry—severe and godlike, but with no condescension to the lower feelings of humanity.

The Hullabîd temple is the opposite of all this. It is regular, but with a studied variety of outline in plan, and even greater variety in detail. All the pillars of the Parthenon are identical, while no two facets of the Indian temple are the same; every convolution of every scroll is different. No two canopies in the whole building are alike, and every part exhibits a joyous exuberance of fancy scorning every mechanical restraint. All that is wild in human faith or warm in human feeling is found portrayed on these walls; but of pure intellect there is little—less than there is of human feeling in the Parthenon.

It would be possible to arrange all the buildings of the world between these two extremes, as they tended toward the severe intellectual purity of the one, or to the playful exuberant fancy of the other; but perfection, if it existed, would be somewhere near the mean. My own impression is, that if the so-called Gothic architects had been able to maintain for two or three hundred years more the rate of progress they achieved between the 11th and the 14th century, they might have hit upon that happy mean between severe constructive propriety and playful decorative imaginings which would have combined into something more perfect than the world has yet seen. The system, however, as I have endeavoured to point out elsewhere, broke down before it had acquired the requisite degree of refinement, and that hope was blighted never to be revived. If architecture ever again assumes an onward path, it will not be by leaning too strongly towards either of the extremes just named, but by grasping somewhere the happy mean between the two.

For our present purpose, the great value of the study of these Indian examples is that it widens so immensely our basis for architectural criticism. It is only by becoming familiar with forms so utterly dissimilar from those we have hitherto been conversant with, that we perceive how narrow is the purview that is content with one form or one passing fashion. By rising to this wider range we shall perceive that architecture is as many-sided as human nature itself, and learn how few feelings and how few aspirations of the human heart and brain there are that cannot be expressed by its means. On the other hand, it is only by taking this wide survey that we appreciate how worthless any product of architectural art becomes which does not honestly represent the thoughts and feelings of those who built it, or the height of their loftiest aspirations.

To return, however, from this digression. There are some eight or nine different temples in this style illustrated by photographs in the great work on the ‘Architecture of Dharwar and Mysore,’[409] which exhibit the peculiarities of this style in more or less detail; but none of these plates are accompanied by plans or details that throw new light on the subject, and none of the temples are either so large or so beautiful as those just described, so that the enumeration of their unfamiliar names would add very little to the interest of the subject.

It would be very interesting, however, if we could adduce some northern examples of the style from either the capital city of the Ballabhis, or some town in their kingdom. For about two centuries—A.D. 500 to 700—they were a leading power in India, and closely allied to the Chalukyas; and their style, if any examples could be found, would throw great light on that of their southern allies just at the period when it is most wanted. Unfortunately, however, even the site of their capital is unknown. If it were at Wulleh, near Gogo, on the shores of the Gulf of Cambay, as is generally supposed, it has perished root and branch. Not one vestige of its architecture now remains, and what antiquities have been found seem all to belong to a much more modern period, when a city bearing that name may have existed on the spot. If it were situated near Anhulwarra Puttun, which seems far more probable, it has been quarried to supply materials for the successive capitals which from that time forward have occupied that favoured neighbourhood, and it would require the keen eye of a practised archæologist to detect Chalukyan details in the temples and mosques that have been erected there during the last 800 years. Nothing of the sort has yet been attempted, and no materials consequently exist for the elucidation of one of the most interesting chapters in the history of Indian art.

BOOK VI.

NORTHERN OR INDO-ARYAN STYLE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

If it were allowable to adopt the loose phraseology of philological ethnography, the term Aryan might be employed, as it is the name by which the people practising this style are usually known in India, and it would be particularly convenient here, as it is the correct and direct antithesis of Dravidian. It is evident, however, that any such term, if applied to architecture, ought to be descriptive of some style practised by that people, wherever they settled, all across Europe and Asia, between the shores of the Atlantic and the Bay of Bengal;[410] and it need hardly be said that no such style exists. If used in conjunction with the adjective Indian or Indo, it becomes much less objectionable, and has the advantage of limiting its use to the people who are generally known as Aryans in India—in other words, to all those parts of the country where Sanscrit was ever spoken, or where the people now speak tongues so far derived from Sanscrit as to be distinguishable as offsets of that great family of languages. Its use, in this respect, has the great convenience that any ordinary ethnographical or linguistic map of India is sufficient to describe the boundaries of the style. It extends, like the so-called Aryan tongues, from the Himalayas to the Vindhya mountains. On the east, it is found prevalent in Orissa; and on the west in Maharastra. Its southern boundary between these two provinces will only be known when the Nizam’s territory is architecturally surveyed; but meanwhile we may rest assured that wherever it is traced the linguistic and architectural boundary-lines will be found coincident.

Another reason why the term Aryan should be applied to the style is, that the country just described, where it prevails, is, and always has been, called Aryavarta by the natives themselves. They consider it as the land of the pure and just—meaning thereby the Sanscrit-speaking peoples—as contradistinguished from that of the casteless Dasyus, and other tribes, who, though they may have adopted Brahmanical institutions, could not acquire their purity of race.

The great defect of the term, however, is that the people inhabiting the north of India are not Aryans in any reasonable sense of the term, whatever philologists may say to the contrary. The Sanscrit-speaking people, who came into India 2000 or it may be 3000 years B.C., could never have been numerically one-half of the inhabitants of the country, except, perhaps, in some such limited district as that between the Sutlej and the Jumna; and since the Christian Era no Aryan race has migrated eastward across the Indus, but wave after wave of peoples of Turanian race, under the names of Yavanas, Sakas, Hunas, or Mongols, have poured into India. This, combined with the ascendancy of the aboriginal races during the period when Buddhism was the religion of the country, has so completely washed out Aryanism from northern India during the building ages, that there is probably no community there which could claim one-tenth of pure Aryan blood in its veins, and with nine-tenths of impurity the term is certainly a misnomer. If it were not, we would certainly find some trace of external Aryan affinities in their style; but this is not the case. In fact, no style is so purely local, and, if the term may be used, so aboriginal, as this. The origin of the Buddhist style is obvious and unmistakeable; that of the Dravidian and Chalukyan nearly as certain, though not quite so obvious; but the origin of the northern Hindu style remains a mystery, unless, indeed, the solution suggested above (ante, p. 224) be considered an explanation. It may be so, to some extent; but I confess it is to my mind neither quite satisfactory nor sufficient.

The style was adopted by the Jains, who, as the successors of the Buddhists, certainly were not Aryans, and several examples of the peculiar forms of their vimanas, or sikras have already been given (Woodcuts Nos. 137, 145, &c.); but it still remains to be ascertained from what original form the curvilinear square tower could have arisen. There is nothing in Buddhist, or any other art, at all like it. It does not seem to have been derived from any wooden form we know, nor from any brick or stone, or tile mode of roofing found anywhere else. I have looked longer, and, perhaps, thought more, on this problem than on any other of its class connected with Indian architecture, but I have no more plausible suggestion to offer than that hinted at above. The real solution will probably be found in the accidental discovery of old temples—so old as to betray in their primitive rudeness the secret we are now guessing at in vain. Meanwhile we probably may remain sure that it was not an imported form, but an indigenous production, and that it has no connection with the architecture of any other people Aryan, or others outside of India.

The view above proposed for the origin of the style derives considerable support from the mode in which the temples are now found distributed. There are more temples now in Orissa than in all the rest of Hindustan put together. They are very frequent in Maharastra, and, if we admit the Jains, who adopted this style, they are ten times more frequent in Gujerat and the valley of the Nerbudda than in the valley of the Ganges, or in Aryavarta, properly so called. The first and most obvious explanation of this fact might be that the last-named country has for 600 years been occupied by a Mahomedan empire, and they, hating idolatry and idol temples, have destroyed them wherever they were so absolutely in possession of the country as to be able to do so with impunity. This may be so, and it is an argument which, with our present materials, it is difficult to disprove. My impression, however, is that it does not correctly represent the true state of the case. That the Moslems did ruthlessly destroy Jaina temples at Ajmir, Delhi, Canouge, and elsewhere, may be quite true, but then it was because their columns served so admirably for the construction of their mosques. The astylar temples of the followers of Siva or Vishnu could only have served as quarries, and no stones that had been previously used in Hindu temples have been traced to any extent in Moslem buildings. Even admitting that at Delhi or Allahabad, or any of their capitals, all Hindu buildings have been utilised, this hardly would have been the case at such a provincial capital as Fyzabad, once Ayodhya, the celebrated capital of Dasaratha, the father of the hero of the ‘Ramayana,’ but where not one carved stone or even a foundation can be discovered that belongs to any ancient building.[411] The most crucial instance, however, is the city of Benares, so long the sacred city, par excellence, of the Hindus, yet, so far as is known, no vestige of an ancient Hindu temple exists within its precincts. James Prinsep resided there for ten years, and Major Kittoe, who had a keener eye than even his great master for an architectural form, lived long there as an archæologist and architect. They drew and measured everything, yet neither of them ever thought that they had found anything that was ancient; and it was not till Messrs. Horne and Sherring[412] started the theory that the buildings around the Bakariya Kund were ancient Buddhist or Hindu remains, that any one pretended to have discovered any traces of antiquity in that city. They certainly, however, are mistaken. Every building about the Bakariya Kund was not only erected by the Mahomedans, but the pillars and roofing-stones, with the fewest possible exceptions, were carved by them for the purposes for which they were applied. They may have used the stones of some deserted monasteries, or other Buddhist buildings, in the foundations or on their terraces, or for little detached pavilions; but all the architecture, properly so called, is in a style invented, or at least introduced by the Pathans, and brought to perfection under Akbar. That the Moslems did destroy Hindu temples may be admitted, but it is not clear that this was done wantonly. In all the instances which are authenticated, it was to gain ready-made materials for their mosques, and it was not till the time of Aurungzebe that any of their monarchs felt himself sufficiently powerful or was so bigoted as to dare the power and enmity of the Brahmans of Benares, by erecting a mosque on the site of one of the most sacred temples as an insult and a defiance to the Hindus. Even then, had such a temple as the great one at Bhuvaneswar ever existed in Benares, every stone of which, from the ground to the kullus, is covered with carving, it seems impossible that all these carved stones should be hid away and not one now to be found. I am myself personally tolerably familiar with Benares, and the conviction such knowledge as I have forces on my mind is, that though the city was the earliest and most important settlement of the Vedic Brahmans—the sacred city of the Aryan Hindus from the remotest ages—yet just from that cause it had fewer temples than any of the cities inhabited by less pure races. What few fragments remain are Buddhist or Jaina, and we must consequently ascribe the absence of anything really ancient more to the non-building instincts of the Brahmanical Aryans than the iconoclastic bigotry of the Moslems.

All this will be clearer as we proceed; but meanwhile it may be well to point to one or two other instances of this. The rock at Gualior was one of the earliest conquests of the Moslems, and they held it more or less directly for five centuries. They built palaces and mosques within its precincts, yet the most conspicuous objects on the hill are Hindu temples, that were erected before they obtained possession of it. In like manner Chittore was thrice besieged and thrice sacked by the Mahomedans, but its numerous buildings are intact, and I do not recollect observing a single instance of wanton destruction in the place. An even more striking instance is found at Ellora. Though Aurungzebe, the most bigoted of his race, built his capital in its neighbourhood, and lies buried within sight of the caves, there is no proof that he or any of his race were the authors of any of the damage that has been done to the idols there. Practically, they are intact, or have only received such mutilation as is easily accounted for from other causes.

It would be tedious to attempt it, but, fortunately, it is not necessary for our present purposes to go into the whole evidence; but I may state that the impression I have derived from such attention as I have been able to give to the subject is, that the absence of old temples in northern India is more owing to ethnographic than to religious causes. It seems more probable that they never existed than that they were destroyed. No temples are mentioned in the Vedas or the older Indian writings, and none were required for the simple quasi-domestic rites of their worship; and so long as they remained pure no temples were built. On the other hand, it appears as if between the fall of Buddhism and the advent of the Moslems the Jains had stepped in with a ready-made religion and style, and the followers of Siva and Vishnu had not time to develope anything very important in these northern provinces before it was too late.

If these views are correct, it is evident that though we may use the term Indo-Aryan as the most convenient to describe and define the limits of the northern style, the name must not be considered as implying that the Aryans, as such, had anything to do either with its invention or its use. All that it is intended to convey is, that it was invented and used in a country which they once occupied, and in which they have left a strong impress of their superior mental power and civilization.

If this reservation is always borne in mind, I know of no term that more conveniently expresses the characteristics of this style, and it is consequently proposed to adopt it in the following pages as the name of the style that prevailed among the Hindus in northern India, between the Vindhya and Himalayan mountains, from the 7th century to the present day.

The general appearance of the northern temples, and the points of difference between them and those of the south, will be appreciated from the above woodcut (No. 227), representing two very ancient temples, built in juxtaposition, at Badami, in Dharwar. That on the left is a complete specimen of Dravidian architecture. There is the same pyramidal form, the same distinction of storeys, the same cells on each, as we find at Mahavellipore (Woodcut No. 181), at Tanjore (Woodcut No. 191), or at Mádura (Woodcut No. 183). In the right-hand temple, the Indo-Aryan, on the contrary, the outline of the pyramid is curvilinear; no trace of division of storeys is observable, no reminiscence of habitations, and no pillars or pilasters anywhere. Even in its modern form (Woodcut No. 228), it still retains the same characteristics, and all the lines of the pyramid or sikra are curvilinear, the base polygonal. No trace of utilitarianism is visible anywhere. If Woodcut No. 228 is compared with that at page 331 (Woodcut No. 183), the two styles will be exhibited in their most modern garbs, when, after more than 1000 years’ practice, they have receded furthest from the forms in which we first meet them Yet the Madras temple retains the memory of its storeys and its cells. The Bengal example 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.

The plan of a northern temple is always a square internally, and generally the same form is retained in the exterior; but very rarely, if ever, without some addition. In some instances it is only a thin parallel projection, as at A in the diagram (No. 229). Sometimes it has two such slices added, as at B; but in the oldest examples these are only half the thickness shown here. From this they proceeded to three projections, as at C, the oldest examples being the thinnest. In more modern times the thickness of the projections became equal to their distance from each other, as at D; so that the temple became in plan practically a square, the sides of which were parallel to the diagonal of the original square or to the line E F G. Even, however, when this was the case, the cell always retained its original form and direction, and the entrance and windows kept their position on what had thus practically become the angles of the building. This is the case with the temple at Benares, shown in Woodcut No. 228, and generally also with the Jaina temples, and especially the case with the temple on the Takht-i-Suleiman at Kashmir. Although the depth and width of these offsets vary considerably even in the same design, the original square is never lost sight of; the four central angles, as at F, being always larger and more strongly accentuated than the others, and their line is always carried through to the summit of the pyramid.

It will be observed that by this process we have arrived at the same form or plan for a solid building that was attained by the arrangement of pillars described above, page 216. In fact, the two forms were elaborated simultaneously, and were afterwards constantly used together. My impression is, that the pillared arrangement is the oldest, and led to the deepening of the additions to the solid square till the two became identical in plan. Whether this were so or not, it is one of the most distinguishing features of northern Hindu architecture.

In the very centre of India, near a place marked Adjmîrghur on the map, is a sacred tank, from which it is said that the Soane flows to the north, the Mahanuddi to Cuttack in the Bay of Bengal, and the Nerbudda to the Indian Ocean. All these rivers certainly have their sources in the hill. The spot has always been held sacred, and is surrounded by temples—as far as can be gathered from the imperfect accounts available—of great age. On the south and east of this hill extends the great and fertile table-land of Chutteesghur. This is now, and has always been, so far as our knowledge extends, one of the principal seats of the native tribes. My conviction is, that if that country and the surrounding valleys could be examined, much older forms of these temples might be discovered—some perhaps so old as to betray the secret of their origin; but, till this is done, the Bengali devala must be relegated—like the Irish round towers[413]—to the category of unexplained architectural puzzles.

CHAPTER II.

ORISSA.

One of the most marked and striking peculiarities of Orissan architecture is the marked and almost absolute contrast it presents to the style of the Dravidian at the southern end of the peninsula. The curved outline of the towers or vimanas has already been remarked upon, but, besides this, no Orissan towers present the smallest trace of any storeyed or even step-like arrangement, which is so universal further south, and the crowning member is never a dome, nor a reminiscence of one. Even more remarkable than this, is the fact that the Orissan style is almost absolutely astylar. In some of the most modern examples, as for instance in the porches added to the temples at Bhuvaneswar and Puri in the 12th and 14th centuries, we do find pillars, but it is probably correct to state that, among the 500 or 600[414] original shrines at Bhuvaneswar, not one pillar is to be found. This is the more remarkable, because, within sight of that capital, the caves in the Udayagiri (ante, p. 140) are adorned with pillars to such an extent as to show that their forms must have been usual and well known in the province before any of the temples were constructed. When we recollect that no great temple in the south was considered complete without its hall of 1000 columns, and many besides this had hundreds dispersed about the place, and used for every conceivable purpose, the contrast is more striking, and shows what a complete barrier the Chalukyas, whoever they were, interposed between the two races on this side of India, though not on the other. As a rule, every Orissan temple consists of two apartments, similar in plan, as shown in the diagram (Woodcut No. 124). The inner one is generally a cube, surmounted by a tower, here called Bara Deul, or Dewul, corresponding with the vimana of the south, and in it the image or images of the gods are enshrined; in front of this is a porch, called Jagamohan, equally a cube or approaching it, and surmounted by a pyramidal roof of varying pitch. The peculiarities are illustrated in the diagram (Woodcut No. 124) just referred to, which purports to be an elevation of the celebrated Black Pagoda at Kanaruc. It is only, however, an eye-sketch, and cannot be depended upon for minute detail and correctness, but it is sufficient to explain the meaning of the text. Sometimes one or two more porches were added in front of this one, and called Nât and Bhog mandirs (mantapas), but these, in almost every instance, are afterthoughts, and not parts of the original design. Be this as it may, in every instance in Orissa the tower with its porch forms the temple. If enclosed in a wall, they are always to be seen outside. There are gateways, it is true, but they are always subordinate, and there are none of those accretions of enclosures and gopuras that form so marked a characteristic of the southern style. There generally are other shrines within the enclosures of the great temples, but they are always kept subordinate, and the temple itself towers over everything to even a greater extent than that at Tanjore (Woodcut No. 191), giving a unity and purpose to the whole design, so frequently wanting in the south.

Other contrasts will come out as we proceed, but, in the meanwhile, few examples bring out more clearly the vast importance of ethnography as applied to architecture. That two people, inhabiting practically the same country, and worshipping the same gods under the guidance of the same Brahmanical priesthood, should have adopted and adhered to two such dissimilar styles for their sacred buildings, shows as clearly as anything can well do how much race has to do with these matters, and how little we can understand the causes of such contrasts, unless we take affinities or differences of race into consideration.

History.

Thanks to the industry of Stirling and others, the main outlines of the history of Orissa have been ascertained with sufficient accuracy to enable us to describe its architecture without the fear of making any important chronological blunders. It is true that the dates of only two of its temples have been ascertained with tolerable certainty. The great one at Bhuvaneswar is said to have been erected in or about A.D. 637, and that at Puri in A.D. 1174, nearly the first and the last of the series. My impression is that the series may be carried back to about the year 500, but in the other direction it can hardly be extended beyond the year 1200, but within these limits it seems possible to arrange the sequence of all the temples in the province without much difficulty, and to ascertain their dates with at least a fair approximate certainty.[415]

With the exception of the great temple of Juganât at Puri, all the buildings described in this chapter were erected under the great Kesari dynasty, or “Lion line,” as Hunter calls them. Few of the particulars of their history have been recorded, but we know at least the date of their accession, A.D. 473, and that in A.D. 1131 they were succeeded by a new dynasty, called Ganga Vansa, the third of whom was the builder of the great Puri Temple.

As mentioned in a previous part of this work, Orissa was principally Buddhist, at least from the time of Asoka, B.C. 250, till the Gupta era, A.D. 319, when all India was distracted by wars connected with the tooth relic, which was said to have been preserved at Puri—then in consequence called Danta Pura—till that time. If the invaders came by sea, as it is said they did, they probably were either Mughs from Arrakan, or the Burmese of Pegu, and if their object was to obtain possession of the tooth, they as probably were Buddhists; but as they have left no buildings that have yet been identified as theirs, it is impossible now to determine this. Whoever they were, they were driven out, after 146 years’ possession, and were succeeded in or about A.D. 473 by Yayati, the first of the Kesari line.[416] The annals of the race unfortunately do not tell us who the Kesaris were, or whence they came. From the third king before the Yavana invasion being called Bato Kesari, it seems probable it may have been only a revival of the old dynasty; and from the circumstances narrated regarding the expulsion of these strangers, it looks as if it were due more to a local rising than to extraneous aid. If they came from the interior, it was from the north-west, where a similar style seems to have prevailed. Their story, as told in their own annals, states that the first, or one of the first kings of the race, imported, about the year A.D. 500, a colony—10,000 Brahmans—from Ayodhya, and they being all bigoted Saivites, introduced that religion into the province, and rooted it so firmly there, that it was the faith of the land so long as the Kesaris ruled.[417] If we read 100 as the number of the Brahmans, and A.D. 600 as the date of their advent, we shall probably be nearer the truth; but be this as it may, these Brahmans were settled at Jajepur, not at Bhuvaneswar, and soon came into conflict with a class of “Old Brahmans,” who had been established in the province long before their arrival. Mr. Hunter supposes them to have been Buddhists—Brahmans converted to the Buddhist faith—which seems probable, but if this were so, they would certainly have become Vaishnavas on the decline of that religion, and such, I fancy, was certainly the case in this instance.

The architecture of the province seems to me to confirm this view of the case, for, unless I am very much mistaken, the oldest temple in the city of Bhuvaneswar is that called Parasurameswara (Woodcut No. 230), which from its name, as well as the subjects portrayed on its walls, I would take to be certainly Vaishnava. It may, however, belong to the preceding dynasty. Its style is certainly different from the early Kesari temples, and more like what we find in Dharwar and at other places outside the province. If, indeed, it were not found in a city which there seems every reason for thinking was founded by the Lion kings, I would not hesitate to give it a date of A.D. 450, instead of A.D. 500. It is not large, being only 20 ft. square[418]

at its base; but its sculptures are cut with a delicacy seldom surpassed, and there is an appropriateness about the ornaments greater than is seen in most of the temples.

The temple itself is apparently 38 ft. in height, and from the summit to the base it is covered with sculptures of the most elaborate character, but still without detracting from the simplicity and vigour of its outline.

If I am correct in assigning so early a date to the tower of this temple, it is evident that the porch must be a subsequent addition: in the first place, because it fits badly to the tower, but more because the necessities of its construction require pillars internally, and they do not occur in Orissan architecture till a long subsequent date. It may, however, be that if this is really the oldest temple of its class in Orissa, its design may be copied from a foreign example, and borrowed, with all its peculiarities, from a style practised elsewhere. Be that as it may, it is interesting as showing the mode by which light was sometimes introduced into the porches of these temples between the ends of the beams of the stone roof. As the sloping roofing-stones project considerably beyond the openings, a subdued light is introduced, without either the direct rays of the sun, or the rain being able to penetrate.

The temple of Mukteswara (Woodcut No. 231) is very similar in general design to that of Parasurameswara, but even richer and more varied in detail, and its porch partakes more of the regular Orissan type. It has no pillars internally, and the roof externally exhibits at least the germ of what we find in the porches of the great temple at Bhuvaneswar and the Black Pagoda. Its dimensions are somewhat less than those of the last temple described, but in its class it may be considered the gem of Orissan architecture.

The style of these temples differs so much from that of the next group, of which the great temple is the typical example, that I was at one time inclined to believe they may have belonged to different religions—this one to the Vaishnava, that to the Saiva. I have no means, however, of verifying this conjecture, and it is not always easy to do so even on the spot, for in India there is nothing so common as temples originally destined for the worship of one deity being afterwards devoted to that of another. Whatever may be the case in this instance, it is well to bear this in mind, as, whenever we have a complete history of Orissan architecture, these distinctions may lead to most important historical deductions.

Besides these, there are several other temples which, from the style of their architecture, I would feel inclined to place as earlier than the great temple. One is known as Sari Dëul, near the great temple, and another, a very complete and beautiful example, is called Moitre (query Mittra) Serai, which is almost a duplicate, on a small scale, of the great temple, except that it has no repetition of itself on itself. As above pointed out, almost all the ornaments on the façades of Buddhist temples are repetitions of themselves; but the Hindus do not seem to have adopted this system so early, and the extent to which it is carried is generally a fair test of the age of Hindu temples. In the great Pagoda there are eight copies of itself on each face, and in the Raj Rani the system is carried so far as almost to obliterate the original form of the temple.

Great Temple, Bhuvaneswar.

The great temple at Bhuvaneswar is one of the landmarks in the style. It seems almost certainly to have been built by Lelat Indra Kesari, who reigned from A.D. 617 to A.D. 657, and, taking it all in all, it is perhaps the finest example of a purely Hindu temple in India.

Though not a building of the largest class, the dimensions of this temple in plan are, so far as I can make out, far from contemptible. The whole length is nearly 300 ft., with a breadth varying from 60 ft. to 75 ft. The original temple, however, like almost all those in Orissa, consisted only of a vimana, or Bara Dewul, and a porch or Jagamohan, shaded darker in the plan (Woodcut No. 232), and they extend only to 160 ft. The Nat and Bhog-mandirs, shaded lighter, were added in the beginning of the 12th century. Though several temples have all these four apartments, so far as I can make out, none were originally erected with them. The true Orissan temple is like that represented in Woodcut No. 124, a building with two apartments only, and these astylar, or practically so: the pillars were only introduced in the comparatively modern additions.

The outline of this temple in elevation is not, at first sight,