DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0283
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JAINA ARCHITECTURE.
Book II.
Jains sought to relieve the apparent weakness of the longer beams
under their domes. It occurs at Abu (Woodcut No. 129), at Grirnar,
at Oudeypore, and many other places we shall have to remark upon
in the sequel; everywhere, in fact, where an octagonal dome was
used. It was also employed by the Hindus in their torans, and so
favourite an ornament did it become that Akbar used it frequently
both at Agra and Futtehpore Sikri. For centuries it continued with-
out much alteration, but at last, in such an example as the great
Bowli at Bundi,1 we find it degenerating into a mere ornament.
It was left, however, for a Jaina architect of the end of the last
or beginning of this century, in the Mahomedan city of Delhi, to
suggest a mode by which what was only conventionally beautiful
might really become an appropriate constructive part of lithic
architecture.
As will be observed in the last cut (No. 146), the architect has
had the happy idea of filling in the whole of the back of the strut
with pierced foliaged tracery of the most exquisite device—thus
turning what, though elegant, was one of the feeblest parts of Jaina
design into a thoroughly constructive stone bracket; one of the
most pleasing to be found in Indian architecture, and doing this
while preserving all its traditional associations. The pillars, too,
that Support these brackets are of great elegance and constructive
propriety, and the whole makes up as elegant a piece of architectural
design as any certainly of its age. The weak part of the composition
is the dome. It is elegant, but too conventional. It no longer has
any constructive propriety, but has become a mere ornament. It
is nut difficult, however, to see why natives should admire and
adopt it. When the eyes of a nation have been educated by a
gradual succession of changes in any architectural object, persevered
in through five or six centuries, the taste becomes so accustomed
to believe the last fashion to be the best, the change has been so
gradual, that people forget how far they are straying from the true path.
The European, who has not been so educated, sees only the result,
without having followed the steps by which it has been so reached, and
is shocked to find how far it has deviated from the form of a true dome
of construction, and, finding it also unfamiliar, condemns it. So,
indeed, it is with nine-tenths of the ornaments of Hindu architec-
ture. Few among us are aware how much education has had to do
with their admiration of classical or mediaeval art, and few, con-
sequently, perceive how much their condemnation of Indian forms
arises from this very want of gradual and appropriate education.
1 'Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,'pi. 17.-
JAINA ARCHITECTURE.
Book II.
Jains sought to relieve the apparent weakness of the longer beams
under their domes. It occurs at Abu (Woodcut No. 129), at Grirnar,
at Oudeypore, and many other places we shall have to remark upon
in the sequel; everywhere, in fact, where an octagonal dome was
used. It was also employed by the Hindus in their torans, and so
favourite an ornament did it become that Akbar used it frequently
both at Agra and Futtehpore Sikri. For centuries it continued with-
out much alteration, but at last, in such an example as the great
Bowli at Bundi,1 we find it degenerating into a mere ornament.
It was left, however, for a Jaina architect of the end of the last
or beginning of this century, in the Mahomedan city of Delhi, to
suggest a mode by which what was only conventionally beautiful
might really become an appropriate constructive part of lithic
architecture.
As will be observed in the last cut (No. 146), the architect has
had the happy idea of filling in the whole of the back of the strut
with pierced foliaged tracery of the most exquisite device—thus
turning what, though elegant, was one of the feeblest parts of Jaina
design into a thoroughly constructive stone bracket; one of the
most pleasing to be found in Indian architecture, and doing this
while preserving all its traditional associations. The pillars, too,
that Support these brackets are of great elegance and constructive
propriety, and the whole makes up as elegant a piece of architectural
design as any certainly of its age. The weak part of the composition
is the dome. It is elegant, but too conventional. It no longer has
any constructive propriety, but has become a mere ornament. It
is nut difficult, however, to see why natives should admire and
adopt it. When the eyes of a nation have been educated by a
gradual succession of changes in any architectural object, persevered
in through five or six centuries, the taste becomes so accustomed
to believe the last fashion to be the best, the change has been so
gradual, that people forget how far they are straying from the true path.
The European, who has not been so educated, sees only the result,
without having followed the steps by which it has been so reached, and
is shocked to find how far it has deviated from the form of a true dome
of construction, and, finding it also unfamiliar, condemns it. So,
indeed, it is with nine-tenths of the ornaments of Hindu architec-
ture. Few among us are aware how much education has had to do
with their admiration of classical or mediaeval art, and few, con-
sequently, perceive how much their condemnation of Indian forms
arises from this very want of gradual and appropriate education.
1 'Picturesque Illustrations of Indian Architecture,'pi. 17.-