Today, we will look at early architecture
in India, starting with the bronze age going
right up to the decline of Buddhism in India.
The Indus valley civilization, which is considered
to be in the middle of the bronze age in the
north west corner of an undivided India, was
followed by a Vedic culture because of people
who moved in from the Caucasus mountains in
Europe.
In South India simultaneously, we have megaliths.
All of these developments, will be followed
by kingdoms in Central and North India; the
birth of the Buddha and of Mahavira, the rise
of the Mauryas with emperor Ashoka expanding
the Mauryan kingdom and then the beginning
of temple Hinduism.
In the meantime, Buddhist cave sites will
have chaityas and also viharas and we start
getting, somewhere around the 2nd- 3rd-4th
century CE, free standing temples - the first
one being temple no.
17 at Sanchi.
But to begin with, we have to start with the
Indus Valley Civilization, which is divided
into three even phases; early mature and late.
The Indus valley is characterised by a uniformity
of measures and standards, that you find across
a very large area.
They construct big urban centres in bricks,
the bricks are of uniform measurements, most
of the layouts are grid iron which is to say
that streets are laid at right angles to each
other and you have very sophisticated systems
of drainage and sewage in all the cities of
the Indus.
The Indus valley sites, such as the ones at
Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa and also Rakhigarhi
in India and port site of Lothal, which is
in Gujarat, have all been excavated extensively
yielding a rich corpus of artifacts and small
finds.
But it is the architecture that is of significance
to us and the architecture is absolutely unique
not just for its modularity but also for its
massive scale.
The bricks are of standard size.
There seems to be some kind of centralized
control over the whole civilization by which
people conform to a standard set of weights
and measurements.
The drainage systems in the Indus Valley,
have been the subject of lot of discussion
because it is the only bronze age site where
we see neatly laid out drain and sewage systems.
These are lined with bricks and a lot of times
you have them completely concealed and covered,
with places from where you can in inspect,
them manholes of an ancient kind.
Though we do not understand a lot about the
hierarchy of this society, what their modes
of worship were, what their religion was and
what they are governance structure were, there
have been lot of theories that suggest it
was some form of perhaps a republic where
more people had a say in governance than just
one monarch.
Indus is characterized by a number of objects,
such as toys with wheels, as the one you can
see on your left, and what is called red ware
with this black slip.
You also have a number of characteristic seals
found in the Indus with what appear to be
letters on top but nobody has been able to
successfully or satisfactorily decipher the
script yet.
You do see their presentation of lot of local
fauna such as Rhinos, Elephants and Buffalos.
And you also have, what seem to be some form
of sacrificial posts with a bull tied to it.
These will all be the ideas that will carry
over into later Hinduism.
Now, for the history of North India in particular,
developments on the Iranian Plateau are very
important.
And the big reason is that the Indus Valley
Civilization itself seems to have enormous
connections with two areas, one is the Iranian
Plateau where you have the Elamites in the
bronze age and also with an archaeological
set of sites called BMAC, the Bactria-Margiana
Archaeological Complex, which is in Afghanistan
and Central Asia.
But what is happening in Iran at the same
time as the Indus valley civilization, is
the creation of other kind of artefacts, but
most notably writing.
The tablet you see on top actually contains
writing that has been deciphered.
What you see at the bottom is a seal but not
the object of a seal but a sealing instead.
A seal which has been used to impress clay.
The Indus valley civilization goes into decline
sometime around 1700 to 1500 BCE, largely
as a result of changes in the environment.
There are big floods.
We have a whole geological record of how the
climate must have changed and how the landscape
change and this whole civilization went into
decline.
A group of Nomadic peoples call the Indo-Europeans
moved in, in multiple waves over the next
several hundred years, to occupy what would
be the Gangetic plain, eventually to be called
North India.
These people moved in many ways, some pockets
stayed on in Iran and their history is largely
reconstructed on the basis of linguistics,
not of architecture, because they had very
little architecture.
The linguistic movements of these people have
been well mapped through a body of knowledge
called Indo European linguistics.
You have similar kinds of words occurring
in languages all the way from Europe to India.
So these people, though they are called Indo-Europeans,
are not necessarily an ethnic group so much
as a linguistic group.
They do not leave behind a big record of architecture
because they were itinerant, they were nomadic,
they were pastoralists.
They breed cows and their wealth was measured
in terms of cattle.
They worshipped gods who lived in Heavens
above and these gods have to be appeased periodically,
by giving them offerings in the form of sacrifices.
And there is a very elaborate set of texts
called the shulba shastras or the shulba sutras
which was written by these people in which
how to construct altars of various kind, here
you see a model of an altar that铆s in the
shape of a bird, but altars of various kinds
with various kinds of ritual implements and
you make offerings to please the Gods which
maintains a certain kind of world order.
The shulba sutras, have been translated and
they are the beginning of what is later called
vedic geometry because you have a lot of geometrical
principles, that get used in the construction
of these elaborate altars.
In parts of India, before the movement of
the vedic peoples there had been a number
of autochthonous cults.
Most notably those worshipping serpent deities
and forest deities, called nagas and yakshas,
and we do have traces of idols and imagery
of these venerated deities.
In fact, a scholar, Johannes Bronkhorst, wrote
a book called Greater Magadha in which the
interactions of previous religions in India
with the movement of Vedic culture is demonstrated
quite nicely.
Simultaneously, in South India, particularly
in Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala
you had a number of megaliths dated to somewhere
between 1500 BCE to 300 BCE.
These are in the forms of menhirs, dolmens
and other kinds of structures associated with
megaliths or megalithic societies, the world
over.
Menhirs are free standing big rock columns,
dolmens are these structures in which a number
of uprights will support a flat slab on top.
These have been recorded for over a hundred
and fifty years at this point but unfortunately
all of them are under great threat, as they
are been encroached upon and disappearing
rather fast.
Shree kumar Menon has done extensive research
on these megalathic sites.
The architecture of the early historic period
in India is tied up with the history of the
Iranian plateau in ways that we shall see.
Around the 6th century 帽 5th century BCE,
a lot of the Indian sub continent was divided
into what are called janapadas or maha janapadas
which are thought of small republics all independently
ruled by some kind of oligarchical system.
It is in this period that you have the rise
of two great thinkers in eastern India, both
of whom, are born within the same century
Gautama Buddha and Mahaveera, both of them
were depicted only several hundred years after
their death and therefore the depictions,
the standard depictions of both Buddha and
Mahaveera, derive from a source that is common
and much later.
These are both sculptures from the first century
CE.
But what is happening on the Iranian plateau
at this point is of particular interest because
it will shape the first empire that we know,
which rules over North India and it is this
Empire that will leave us with the first architectural
vestiges.
But to begin with, in Iran, what you do have
is the large Achaemenid Empire ruled by people
like Cyrus and Darius and Xerxes.
These are the famous Persians who are constantly
at war with the ancient Greeks.
They have an expansive empire and they will
themselves a grand capital at a site called
Persepolis, Not far away from modern day Shiraz.
It is at Persepolis that they build massive
palaces and halls of which only spotty remains
are to be found now.
But the centre place of this whole complex
is a large hole called the Apadana, in which
people would have been received from different
parts of the Empire on the day of Nowruz which
was celebrated in great style.
Well what happened to this palace in why does
it survive in this form?
These are pictures of processions of people
who would have coming from different part
of the Empire, processed through the palace
and made offerings to the King.
All that remains are these columns now and
the reason is that in 327 BC, a young man
from Macedonia called Alexander swept through
with his armies across the Iranian plateau,
completely destroyed the Achaemenid Kingdom,
that is to say the kingdom of the ancient
Persian and burnt down their palaces of which
we have description from contemporary Greek
sources.
Now all this destruction resulted in only
the most imperishable materials surviving
and those were the stones platforms and the
stone columns.
The palaces which were built largely in wood
are all gone and so what you see as a remnant
of imperial might in the 4th century BC are
these big columns with capitals of animal
shaped on top.
The other thing that the accumulate leaves
behind is a massive tradition of stone cut
architecture.
Just behind Persepolis is this site, which
is a set of rock cut funerary monuments to
the Achaemenid emperors.
The third thing we have from the Achaemenids,
which will make its way to India is monumental
writing, Royal edicts put up on stone in prominent
places where travellers could see them.
It is unlikely that anybody actually read
what was written but the idea was that the
royal word would be displayed prominently
and people would know what it meant.
And this is what this inscription the Behistun
inscription looks like in real life.
Well, all three things make their way over
to India after this destruction of the Achaemenids
by Alexander.
Alexander manages to control and conquer all
of the Achaemenid lands then he dies before
going back and his whole Empire that he is
building up crumbles and is replaced by a
lot of small regional kingdoms.
Well the reason why the history of India is
tied up with the history of Iran is because
as the Achaemenid Empire disappears a new
Empire appears in India around the same time,
that of Chandragupta Maurya, who then has
sustained contacts not only with the resemblance
of the Achaemenid but also the new colonizers
of the whole area who are all Greeks.
What you are what you see the Indo Greeks,
the Seleucid the Bactrians a number of kingdoms
grow up between Afghanistan Iran and India.
these are all Greek speaking ethnic Greek
populations that build large cities and rule.
A lot of them have served in Alexander's army
and these commanders and generals are only
too happy to set up their own little kingdoms.
Eventually when the Mauryan Empire goes into
decline you have the Parthian Empire Rise
in Iran.
The Kushans who come out of Central Asia will
eventually unite the Iranian plateau and north
India into one state formation.
But of interest now is what happens to the
Mauryas in the immediate aftermath of the
Achaemenids.
The Mauryas have sustained contact with the
great kingdoms that arise on the Northwest
of India.
We know of people like Menander, called Milinda
in sanskratic sources, but we also know of
Greek sources that describe people like Chandragupta
Maurya calling him Sandrocottus.
The third generation, that is to say the grandson
of Chandragupta Maurya, embraces Buddhism,
but it is under him that the Mauryan Empire
has grown to its largest.
He embraces Buddhism because he is very disturbed
by the battlefield that he sees after the
war of Kalinga.
His embrace of Buddhism means he will not
fight wars anymore but setup edicts and columns
all across India, like this one, which is
at Lauriya Nandangarh, in Bihar
The famous capital which is used as the Emblem
of the Republic of India is also an Ashokan
capital, the four lions.
Where does the inspiration for this kind of
monuments come from?
It clearly comes from the columns that you
see at Persepolis, which what survives on
the palace is only columns, capped by a capital
in the form of an animal.
The other thing Ashoka borrows from the Achaemenids
is monumental writing.
This is an Ashokan pillar at Lumbini the birthplace
of the Buddha, on which you have a standard
edict that you find on Ashokan pillars.
So already, two of the three things that we
see in an Achaemenid imperial architecture
has been borrowed by the Mauryas, as soon
as Ashoka embraces Buddhism.
Here is a comparison between what you see
as capital on anAchaemenid column at Persepolis
and an Ashokan column on the right hand side.
When you look at freestanding columns such
as the one Vaishali from the right hand side
and compare it with what you see at Persepolis
it is not a stretch of imagination to see
how the Achaemenid columns would inspire the
Mauryan columns, as markers of Imperial grandeur,
of imperial might and providing an imperial
message in the form of an inscription.
Again, on the left you have a column capital
from Persepolis on the right hand side you
have a pillar from the national museum in
Delhi.
Notice the exactly same shapes that have been
borrowed by Indian artisans.
The Achaemenids, will at the western edge
of the Empire, in modern day Turkey,at a place
called Lycia, have a tradition of tombs that
are built in living rock
Already in the fifth century BC, these are
being constructed on the Western end of the
Achaemenid Empire.
The Achaemenid kings will built two tombs
for themselves like this behind Persepolis.
And, within a couple of hundred years in the
middle of the third century BCE at a place
called the Barabar hills in Bihar you have
a similar set of excavated caves, but in this
case not to house the mortal remains of a
dead person.
These are caves which actually are meant to
house asetics and we know this from an inscription
on the site which says that they were made
for a set of wondering ascetics called the
Ajivikas, by somebody from the Maurya dynasty.
There are multiple caves with different kinds
of openings.
This clearly is a phase of great experimentation.
People have not seen rock cut architecture
of this kind before its an idea that seems
to come in from the western end of Asia through
the Achaemenid empire into India, in Bihar.
And you see attempts at creating different
shapes, in fact the openings to different
caves are also different at this site.
The most celebrated of this cave is the one
called the lomas rushi cave.
Celebrated because the entrance of the cave
resembles a thatched hut.
In fact if you look at the image on the top
left you will see that the curvilinear roof
line over the entrance has what look like
wooden dentals or wooden joists, projecting
outwards, a clear case of building in stone
what originally would be built in wood, like
a much later Toda hut you see at the bottom.
This cave is also interesting because once
you get inside you realise that the surfaces
are completely polished, till they have a
kind of glaze and at the end of this long
rectal in your hall, which you see in plan
is a small round hut built inside the living
rock.
This clearly is a replication of a hut that
would house a holy man perhaps the guru of
the Ajivikas who would all assemble in the
monsoons in this big hall while their leader
was in the hut.
A hut being the hut built in stone inside
a cave.
This is what the interior looks like.
Now this idea that a hut houses a holy man
or a holy presence is an idea that never goes
away.
It will survive through various Buddhist monuments,
through Jain monuments and through Hindu monuments.
We will see various iterations of this theme
through the course of several hundred years.
This is an image taken from a famous book
on Indian Architecture by an author, a scholar
called Percy Brown.
You later find similar kinds of arrangements
where a hut housing a holy presence, in this
case the presence is signified by Buddha Stupa,
at a cave site called Kondivate in Maharashtra.
This is what the site at kondivate looks like.
So again, you have a long assembly hall inside
which a hut built in stone and inside the
hut is a stupa which is meant to symbolise
the presence of the Buddha.
In the case of the Ajivika cave at Barabar
hills instead of a stupa you actually had
a living master who lived there for part of
the year.
The Achaemenids are replaced by the Seleucids
and the Indo-Greeks and they too embrace Buddhism
partially because of Ashoka's missionary efforts.
And while they come with a lot of things like
Greek coin age and Greek deities and so on,
you start seeing elements of the locals slowly
seep into their culture.
Such as this chariot which is drawn by elephants
on one of the coins.
You also have a set of kingdoms call the Graeco-Bactrian
Kingdom which slowly embrace Buddhism and
it is in these kingdoms that you start seeing
stupas, and also bilingual inscriptions of
Ashoka in both Greek and Arabic sometimes
in Kharoshti.
The languages vary, the scripts vary, and
it is from here in this period that you start
seeing reliefs which show you the constructed
stupas and how they are being worshipped by
populations in the area.
Note the cloche, note the postures of all
these figures who are worshiping a stupa and
you will say that they have, the folds of
the garments are like classical Greek sculpture,
these are Hellenistic cultures in Asia.
Note the columns which are an important marker
of Greek architecture particularly when they
have those kinds of ornate vegetal capitals
on top.
At a site called Ai Khanoum in Afghanistan,
which is one of these Bactrian sites, one
of these Hellenistic sites, a Greek settlement
that is built, you find columns capitals like
the one you have in the right-hand side.
The plate on the left shows you what later
would be the standard orders of architecture
in Greece and Rome.
The Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian, sometimes
the Tuscan.
But at Ai khanoum there is a local inventiveness
and they have hybrid kinds of capitals and
columns.
And the same kinds of capitals were excavated
at Patliputra, in a palace that probably was
a Mauryan palace.
These have been well published and reside
in the Patna museum now.
