DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0490
466
NORTHERN OR INDO-ARYAN STYLE. Book VI-
it might be expedient to describe in a more extensive work; but,
except one, none of them seem of sufficient importance to require
illustration in a work like the present. The exceptional style is that
which grew up in Bengal proper on the relaxation of the Maho-
medan severity of religious intolerance, and is practised generally in
the province at the present day. It may have existed earlier, but no
examples are known, and it is consequently impossible to feel sure
about this. Its leading characteristic is the bent cornice, copied
from the bambu huts of the natives. To understand this, it may be
as well to explain that the roofs of all the huts in Bengal are formed
of two rectangular frames of bambus, perfectly flat and rectangular
when formed, but when lifted from the ground and fitted to the
substructure they are bent so that the elasticity of the bambu,
resisting the flexure, keeps all the fastenings in a state of tension,
which makes a singularly firm roof out of very frail materials. It
is the only instance I know of elasticity being employed in building,
but is so singularly successful in attaining the desired end, and is
so common, that we can hardly wonder when the Bengalis turned
their attention to more permanent modes of building they should
have copied this one. It is nearly certain that it was employed for
the same purposes before the Mahomedan sovereigntj', as it is found
in all the mosques at Gaur and Mai da ; but we do not know of its use
in Hindu temples till afterwards, though now it is extremely common
all over northern India.
One of the best examples of a temple in this style is that at Kan-
tonuggur, twelve miles from the station at Dinajepore. It was com-
menced in a.d. 1704 and finished in 1722.1 As will be seen from the
annexed illustration (Woodcut No. 263), it is a nine-towered temple,
of considerable dimensions, and of a pleasingly picturesque design.
The centre pavilion is square, and, but for its pointed form, shows
clearly enough its descent from the Orissan prototypes; the other
eight are octagonal, and must, I fancy, be derived from Mahomedan
originals. The pointed arches that prevail throughout are certainly
borrowed from that style, but the building being in brick their
employment was inevitable.
No stone is used in the building, and the whole surface is covered
with designs in terra-cotta, partly conventional, and these are fre-
quently repeated, as they may be without offence to taste.; but the
bulk of them are figure-subjects, which do not ever seem to be
repeated, and form a perfect repository of the manners, customs, and
costumes of the people of Bengal at the beginning of the last century.
In execution they display an immeasurable inferiority to the carvings
1 Buchanan Hamilton, 'Eastern India,' edited by Montgomery Martin, 1837,
vol. ii. p. 628.
NORTHERN OR INDO-ARYAN STYLE. Book VI-
it might be expedient to describe in a more extensive work; but,
except one, none of them seem of sufficient importance to require
illustration in a work like the present. The exceptional style is that
which grew up in Bengal proper on the relaxation of the Maho-
medan severity of religious intolerance, and is practised generally in
the province at the present day. It may have existed earlier, but no
examples are known, and it is consequently impossible to feel sure
about this. Its leading characteristic is the bent cornice, copied
from the bambu huts of the natives. To understand this, it may be
as well to explain that the roofs of all the huts in Bengal are formed
of two rectangular frames of bambus, perfectly flat and rectangular
when formed, but when lifted from the ground and fitted to the
substructure they are bent so that the elasticity of the bambu,
resisting the flexure, keeps all the fastenings in a state of tension,
which makes a singularly firm roof out of very frail materials. It
is the only instance I know of elasticity being employed in building,
but is so singularly successful in attaining the desired end, and is
so common, that we can hardly wonder when the Bengalis turned
their attention to more permanent modes of building they should
have copied this one. It is nearly certain that it was employed for
the same purposes before the Mahomedan sovereigntj', as it is found
in all the mosques at Gaur and Mai da ; but we do not know of its use
in Hindu temples till afterwards, though now it is extremely common
all over northern India.
One of the best examples of a temple in this style is that at Kan-
tonuggur, twelve miles from the station at Dinajepore. It was com-
menced in a.d. 1704 and finished in 1722.1 As will be seen from the
annexed illustration (Woodcut No. 263), it is a nine-towered temple,
of considerable dimensions, and of a pleasingly picturesque design.
The centre pavilion is square, and, but for its pointed form, shows
clearly enough its descent from the Orissan prototypes; the other
eight are octagonal, and must, I fancy, be derived from Mahomedan
originals. The pointed arches that prevail throughout are certainly
borrowed from that style, but the building being in brick their
employment was inevitable.
No stone is used in the building, and the whole surface is covered
with designs in terra-cotta, partly conventional, and these are fre-
quently repeated, as they may be without offence to taste.; but the
bulk of them are figure-subjects, which do not ever seem to be
repeated, and form a perfect repository of the manners, customs, and
costumes of the people of Bengal at the beginning of the last century.
In execution they display an immeasurable inferiority to the carvings
1 Buchanan Hamilton, 'Eastern India,' edited by Montgomery Martin, 1837,
vol. ii. p. 628.