CHAPTER I. HINDOO ART AND SCIENCE. A LTHOUGH the nations of the West have far outstripped the Asiatics in art and science, no less than in other branches of human skill and ingenuity, the craftsman of the East can point to ages long past, when as yet the people of European countries were unknown, even by name- -when the Christian religion had not been proclaimed to the nations of the earth- -as to a period when his country shone as a bright luminary amidst the darkness around; when intellect and skilled labour had their home in his fertile and beautiful land; when all that was intelligent, and rare, and excellent, was to be found within the limits of Hindostan. Every wreck that we meet with pertaining to this wonderful country tells the same tale of departed greatness and excellence. Perhaps with few things is the modern student of history more struck than with the architectural remains of the Hindoo period. The great antiquity of the works of extruction or excavation, which are to-day met with in many parts of India, bears testimony to the fact of superior skill having been employed upon them. If we find few objects of construction remaining to attest the position of this science in the early days of Hindooism, a ready reason may be found in the numberless successive invasions of the land which took place, and during which havoc and ruin were but too frequently the accompaniments, prompted by bigotry and religious fanaticism. The stupendous rock-cut temples of Ellora, Ajunta, and Elephanta, have, from the peculiarity of their structure, defied these agents of destruction; and, in the case of the two latter at any rate, are witnesses to the skill and industry of the Hindoo craftsmen in an age when what we term civilisation was as yet unborn. Although we possess a multitude of pictures and plans illustrative of the architectural remains of Hindostan, the subject does not appear to have engaged the attention of any professional man on the spot: I am therefore under the necessity of dwelling on this topic in a brief and general manner, wanting any connected detail of the styles practised throughout India in the various periods during which architecture may be said to have flourished in that country. There is, however, one exception to this general neglect of the study of Eastern architecture: an enterprising officer of the Indian army has shewn, by a connected series of drawings, that in Cashmere a style prevailed as regular and severe in its details as those of Greece and Rome. It may therefore reasonably be conjectured that similar results will attend like inquiry in other parts of India, and that at no distant date we may be in possession of a perfect system of Indian architecture as practised in the early part of our era. From the limited data we possess of the raised edifices of Hindostan, the Indian architects would appear to have indulged in the most fanciful and grotesque vagaries, agreeing neither with taste nor propriety. The Hindoo columns, for instance, are met with of all shapes and all dimensions. Sometimes we find them tall, slender, and thickly placed; again they are found ponderous and massive, with the lowest fourth of their height square; the next kind is eight-sided, the third sixteen-sided, and the upper part round. In many instances we meet with columns having a double capital with a low flat base; and others, again, forming perhaps a portion of the same temple, with shafts of only one fourth of their height, the remaining three-fourths being all base and capital.2 ANCIENT COLUMN. As many as twelve distinct kinds of mouldings appear in these temples, some few of which bear a close resemblance to our own, but they are mostly quite original in their character. The Hindoo style, so far as it is known, is believed to bear an affinity to that of the Egyptian; 1 Elphinstone, vol. i. p. 303. 2 Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xvii. part ii. p. 242. |