DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0028
6
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
than good in itself or appropriate to its purpose ; hence the difference
in the result.
In one other respect India affords a singularly favourable field to the
student of architecture. In no other country of the same extent are
there so many distinct nationalities, each retaining its old faith and its
old feelings, and imj>ressing these on its art. There is consequently
no country where the outlines of ethnology as applied to art can be
so easily perceived, or their application to the elucidation of the various
problems so pre-eminently important. The mode in which the art
has been practised in Europe for the last three centuries has been
very confusing. In India it is clear and intelligible. No one can look
at the subject without seeing its importance, and no one can study
the art as practised there without recognising what the principles of the
science really are.
In addition, however, to these scientific advantages, it will un-
doubtedly be conceded by those who are familiar with the subject that
for certain qualities the Indian buildings are unrivalled. They display
an exuberance of fancy, a lavishness of labour, and an elaboration of
detail to be found nowhere else. They may contain nothing so sublime
as the hall at Karnac, nothing so intellectual as the Parthenon, nor so
constructively grand as a medieval cathedral; but for certain other
qualities—not perhaps of the highest kind, yet very important in
architectural art—the Indian buildings stand alone. They consequently
fill up a great gap in our knowledge of the subject, which without them
would remain a void.
History.
One of the greatest difficulties that exist—perhaps the greatest—
in exciting an interest in Indian antiquities arises from the fact, that
India has no history properly so called, before the Mahomedan invasion
in the 13th century. Had India been a great united kingdom, like
China, with a long line of dynasties and well-recorded dates attached to
them, the task would have been comparatively easy ; but nothing of the
sort exists or ever existed within her boundaries. On the contrary,
so far as our knowledge extends, India has always been occupied by
three or four different races of mankind, who have never amalgamated
so as to become one people, and each of these races have been again
subdivided into numerous tribes or small nationalities nearly, sometimes
win illy, independent of each other—and, what is worse than all, not one
of them ever kept a chronicle or preserved a series of dates commencing
from any well-known era.1
1 The following brief resume of the complete or exhaustive view of the sub-
principal events in the ancient history ject. It is intended only as such a
of India has no pretensions to hainy; a popular sketoh as shall enable tho general
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
than good in itself or appropriate to its purpose ; hence the difference
in the result.
In one other respect India affords a singularly favourable field to the
student of architecture. In no other country of the same extent are
there so many distinct nationalities, each retaining its old faith and its
old feelings, and imj>ressing these on its art. There is consequently
no country where the outlines of ethnology as applied to art can be
so easily perceived, or their application to the elucidation of the various
problems so pre-eminently important. The mode in which the art
has been practised in Europe for the last three centuries has been
very confusing. In India it is clear and intelligible. No one can look
at the subject without seeing its importance, and no one can study
the art as practised there without recognising what the principles of the
science really are.
In addition, however, to these scientific advantages, it will un-
doubtedly be conceded by those who are familiar with the subject that
for certain qualities the Indian buildings are unrivalled. They display
an exuberance of fancy, a lavishness of labour, and an elaboration of
detail to be found nowhere else. They may contain nothing so sublime
as the hall at Karnac, nothing so intellectual as the Parthenon, nor so
constructively grand as a medieval cathedral; but for certain other
qualities—not perhaps of the highest kind, yet very important in
architectural art—the Indian buildings stand alone. They consequently
fill up a great gap in our knowledge of the subject, which without them
would remain a void.
History.
One of the greatest difficulties that exist—perhaps the greatest—
in exciting an interest in Indian antiquities arises from the fact, that
India has no history properly so called, before the Mahomedan invasion
in the 13th century. Had India been a great united kingdom, like
China, with a long line of dynasties and well-recorded dates attached to
them, the task would have been comparatively easy ; but nothing of the
sort exists or ever existed within her boundaries. On the contrary,
so far as our knowledge extends, India has always been occupied by
three or four different races of mankind, who have never amalgamated
so as to become one people, and each of these races have been again
subdivided into numerous tribes or small nationalities nearly, sometimes
win illy, independent of each other—and, what is worse than all, not one
of them ever kept a chronicle or preserved a series of dates commencing
from any well-known era.1
1 The following brief resume of the complete or exhaustive view of the sub-
principal events in the ancient history ject. It is intended only as such a
of India has no pretensions to hainy; a popular sketoh as shall enable tho general