DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0232
Chap. L
INTRODUCTORY.
209
own, distinct from that of structural edifices. These, being interposed
between the Buddhist and Jaina styles, separate the two as completely
as if no examples existed, and prevent our tracing any connexion that
may have existed betw een the tw o forms of art.
The earliest hint we get of a twelve-pillared dome, such as those
universally used by the Jains, is in a sepulchre at Mylassa,1 probably
belonging to the 4th century. A second hint is found in the great
cave at Bagh (Woodcut No. 87) in the 6th or 7th century, and
there is little doubt that others will be found when looked for—but
where ( In the valley of the Ganges, and wherever the Mahomedans
settled in force, it would be in vain to look for them. These zealots
found the slender and elegant pillars, and the richly carved horizontal
domes of the Jains, so appropriate and so easily re-arranged for their
purposes, that they utilised all t\\zy cared not to destroy. The great
mosques of Ajmir, Delhi, Canouge, Dhar, and Ahmedabad, are all merely
reconstructed temples of the Jains. There is, however, nothing in any
of them that seems to belong to a very remote period—nothing in fact
that can be earned back to times long, if at all, anterior to the year
1000. So we must look further for the cause of their loss.
As mentioned in the introduction the curtain drops on the drama
of Indian history about the year 650, or a little later, and for three
centuries we have only the faintest glimmerings of what took place
within her boundaries. Civil wars seem to have raged everywhere,
and religious persecution of the most relentless kind. When the cur-
tain again rises we have an entirely new scene and new dramatis
persome presented to us. Buddhism had entirely disappeared, except
in one corner of Bengal, and Jainism had taken its place throughout
the west, and Vishnuism had usurped its inheritance in the east. On
the south the religion of Siva had been adopted by the mass of the
people, and these three religions had all assumed new and complex
forms from the adoption of local superstitions, and differed widely
from the simpler forms of the earlier. faiths. My impression is that it
was during these three centuries of misrule that the later temples and
viharas of the Buddhists disappeared, and the earlier temples of the
Jains; and there is a gap consequently in our history which may be
filled up by new discoveries in remote places,2 but which at present
separates this chapter from the last in a manner it is by no means
pleasant to contemplate.
1 Vol. i. p. 359, Woodcut No. 241.
- Tilt'antiquities of .lava will probably,
to some extent at least, supply this defi-
ciency, as will be pointed out in a sub-
sequent chapter.
INTRODUCTORY.
209
own, distinct from that of structural edifices. These, being interposed
between the Buddhist and Jaina styles, separate the two as completely
as if no examples existed, and prevent our tracing any connexion that
may have existed betw een the tw o forms of art.
The earliest hint we get of a twelve-pillared dome, such as those
universally used by the Jains, is in a sepulchre at Mylassa,1 probably
belonging to the 4th century. A second hint is found in the great
cave at Bagh (Woodcut No. 87) in the 6th or 7th century, and
there is little doubt that others will be found when looked for—but
where ( In the valley of the Ganges, and wherever the Mahomedans
settled in force, it would be in vain to look for them. These zealots
found the slender and elegant pillars, and the richly carved horizontal
domes of the Jains, so appropriate and so easily re-arranged for their
purposes, that they utilised all t\\zy cared not to destroy. The great
mosques of Ajmir, Delhi, Canouge, Dhar, and Ahmedabad, are all merely
reconstructed temples of the Jains. There is, however, nothing in any
of them that seems to belong to a very remote period—nothing in fact
that can be earned back to times long, if at all, anterior to the year
1000. So we must look further for the cause of their loss.
As mentioned in the introduction the curtain drops on the drama
of Indian history about the year 650, or a little later, and for three
centuries we have only the faintest glimmerings of what took place
within her boundaries. Civil wars seem to have raged everywhere,
and religious persecution of the most relentless kind. When the cur-
tain again rises we have an entirely new scene and new dramatis
persome presented to us. Buddhism had entirely disappeared, except
in one corner of Bengal, and Jainism had taken its place throughout
the west, and Vishnuism had usurped its inheritance in the east. On
the south the religion of Siva had been adopted by the mass of the
people, and these three religions had all assumed new and complex
forms from the adoption of local superstitions, and differed widely
from the simpler forms of the earlier. faiths. My impression is that it
was during these three centuries of misrule that the later temples and
viharas of the Buddhists disappeared, and the earlier temples of the
Jains; and there is a gap consequently in our history which may be
filled up by new discoveries in remote places,2 but which at present
separates this chapter from the last in a manner it is by no means
pleasant to contemplate.
1 Vol. i. p. 359, Woodcut No. 241.
- Tilt'antiquities of .lava will probably,
to some extent at least, supply this defi-
ciency, as will be pointed out in a sub-
sequent chapter.