James Fergusson

CONTENTS.

Tanjore—Tiruvalur—Seringham—Chillambaram—Ramisseram—MÁdura—Tinnevelly—Combaconum—Conjeveram—Vellore and Peroor—Vijayanagar.

When we turn from these few scattered rock-cut examples to the great structural temples of the style, we find their number is so great, their extent so vast, and their variety so perplexing, that it is extremely difficult to formulate any distinct ideas regarding them, and still more so, as a matter of course, to convey to others any clear idea on the subject. To any one at all familiar with the present status of the population of the province, the greatest wonder is how such a people could ever have conceived, much less carried out, such vast undertakings as these, and that so recently that some of the greatest and boldest were only interrupted by our wars with the French little more than a century ago. The cause of this, however, is not far to seek. Ever since we took possession of the country, our countrymen have been actuated by the most beneficent intentions of protecting the poor against the oppression of the rich. By every means we have sought to secure the ryot in his holding, and that he should not be called on to pay more than his fair share of the produce of his land; while to the landowner we have offered a secure title to what belonged to him, and a fixed income in money in lieu of his portion of the produce. To a people, however, in the state of civilization to which India has reached, a secure title and a fixed income only means the power of borrowing on the occasion of a marriage, a funeral, or some great family festival, ten times more than the borrower can ever pay, and our courts as inevitably give the lender the power of foreclosing his mortgage and selling the property. During the century in which this communistic process has been going on the landed aristocracy have gradually disappeared. All the wealth of the country has passed into the hands of the money-lenders of the cities, and by them dissipated in frivolities. If the aim of the government is to reduce the whole population to the condition of peasant proprietors, occupying the land without capital, and consequently on the verge of starvation, they have certainly succeeded. It may be beneficent, and may produce the greatest happiness to the greatest number; but in such a community neither science, nor literature, nor art have any place, and religion itself becomes degraded by the status of its votaries.

Before we interfered, the condition of things was totally different. The practical proprietorship of the land was then in the hands of a few princes or feudal lords, who derived from it immense revenues they had no means of spending, except in works of ostentation, which in certain stages of civilization are as necessary for the employment of the masses as for their own glorification. In such a country as India the employment of one-half of the population in agriculture is sufficient to produce food for the whole, while the other half are free for any employment that may be available. We in this country employ our non-agricultural half in manufactures and commerce. The southern Indians had neither, and found no better occupation for the surplus population than in temple-building. Whether this was more profitable or beneficial than hammering iron or spinning cotton is not a question it is necessary to enter on here. It is enough to know the fact, and to mark its consequences. The population of southern India in the 17th and 18th century was probably hardly less than it is now—some thirty millions—and if one-third or one-fourth of such a population were to seek employment in building, the results, if persevered in through centuries, would be something astonishing. A similar state of affairs prevailed apparently in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs, but with very different results. The Egyptians had great and lofty ideas, and a hankering after immortality, that impressed itself on all their works. The southern Indians had no such aspirations. Their intellectual status is, and always was, mediocre; they had no literature of their own—no history to which they could look back with pride, and their religion was, and is, an impure and degrading fetishism. It is impossible that anything very grand or imposing should come out of such a state of things. What they had to offer to their gods was a tribute of labour, and that was bestowed without stint. To cut a chain of fifty links out of a block of granite and suspend it between two pillars, was with them a triumph of art. To hollow deep cornices out of the hardest basalt, and to leave all the framings, as if of the most delicate woodwork, standing free, was with them a worthy object of ambition, and their sculptures are still inexplicable mysteries, from our ignorance of how it was possible to execute them. All that millions of hands working through centuries could do, has been done, but with hardly any higher motive than to employ labour and to conquer difficulties, so as to astonish by the amount of the first and the cleverness with which the second was overcome—and astonished we are; but without some higher motive true architecture cannot exist. The Dravidians had not even the constructive difficulties to overcome which enabled the mediÆval architects to produce such noble fabrics as our cathedrals. The aim of architects in the Middle Ages was to design halls which should at the same time be vast, but stable, and suited for the accommodation of great multitudes to witness a lofty ritual. In their struggle to accomplish this they developed intellectual powers which impress us still through their works. No such lofty aims exercised the intellectual faculties of the Hindu. His altar and the statue of his god were placed in a dark cubical cell wholly without ornament, and the porch that preceded that was not necessarily either lofty or spacious. What the Hindu architect craved for, was a place to display his powers of ornamentation, and he thought he had accomplished all his art demanded when he covered every part of his building with the most elaborate and most difficult designs he could invent. Much of this ornamentation, it is true, is very elegant, and evidences of power and labour do impress the human imagination, often even in defiance of our better judgment, and nowhere is this more apparent than in these Dravidian temples. It is in vain, however, we look among them for any manifestation of those lofty aims and noble results which constitute the merit and the greatness of true architectural art, and which generally characterise the best works in the true styles of the western world.

Turning from these generalities to the temples themselves, the first great difficulty experienced in attempting either to classify or describe them is that no plans of them exist. I know myself upwards of thirty great Dravidian temples, or groups of temples, any one of which must have cost as much to build as an English cathedral, some a great deal more; but of all these there are only three, or it may be four, of which even a moderately trustworthy plan is available. Two-thirds of these have been sufficiently photographed by Dr. Hunter, Capt. Lyon,[374] and others; the remaining third I know either from personal inspection or from drawings and descriptions. This is, of course, irrespective of village temples, and, it may be, of some extensive groups which have been overlooked. If these temples had been built like those of the Greeks, or even as the Christian churches in the Middle Ages, on one uniform plan, changing only with the progress of time, one or two plans might have sufficed; but the fact is that, in nine cases out of ten, Dravidian temples are a fortuitous aggregation of parts, arranged without plan, as accident dictated at the time of their erection; and, without plans, no adequate idea can be conveyed to those who have not seen them. The one great exception to this rule is to be found at Tanjore. The great Pagoda there was commenced on a well-defined and stately plan, which was persevered in till its completion. As will be seen from the annexed diagram (Woodcut No. 190) it consists of two courts,[375] one a square of about 250 ft., originally devoted to minor shrines and residences; but when the temple was fortified by the French in 1777[376] it was converted into an arsenal, and has not been re-appropriated to sacred purposes. The temple itself stands in a courtyard extremely well proportioned to receive it, being about 500 ft. long by half that in width, the distance between the gateway and the temple being broken by the shrine of the Bull Nundi,[377] which is sufficiently important for its purpose, but not so much so as to interfere with the effect of the great vimana, which stands near the inner end of the court. The perpendicular part of its base measures 82 ft. square, and is two storeys in height, of simple outline, but sufficiently relieved by niches and pilasters. Above this the pyramid rises in thirteen storeys to the summit, which is crowned by a dome said to consist of a single stone, and reaching a height of 190 ft. The porch in front is kept low, and as will be seen from the woodcut (No. 191) the tower dominates over the gopuras and surrounding objects in a manner that imparts great dignity to the whole composition.

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190. Diagram Plan of Tanjore Pagoda. (From a Sketch by the Author.) Scale 200 ft. to 1 in.

Besides the great temple and the Nundi porch there are several other smaller shrines in the enclosure, one of which, dedicated to Soubramanya, a son of Siva’s, is as exquisite a piece of decorative architecture as is to be found in the south of India, and though small, almost divides our admiration with the temple itself (Woodcut No. 192). It is built behind an older shrine, which may be coeval with the great temple as originally designed.

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191. View of the Great Pagoda at Tanjore. (From a Photograph by Middleton Rayne, Esq., C.E.)

One of the peculiarities of the Tanjore temple is that all the sculptures on the gopuras belong to the religion of Vishnu, while everything in the courtyard is dedicated to the worship of Siva. At first I felt inclined to believe it had been erected wholly in honour of the first-named divinity, but am now more inclined to the belief that it is only an instance of the extreme tolerance that prevailed at the age at which it was erected, before these religions became antagonistic.

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192. Temple of Soubramanya, Tanjore. (From a Photograph.)

What, then, was that age? Strange to say, though so complete and uniform, and standing, as it does, almost alone, its date is not known. Mr. Norman, a competent authority, in the text that accompanied Tripe’s photographs, says it was erected by Kadu Vettiya Soran, or Cholan,[378] a king reigning at Conjeveram in the beginning of the 14th century. At one time I hoped it was earlier, but on the whole I am now convinced that this must be very nearly the truth.

The Soubramanya is certainly one century, probably two centuries, more modern. The Bull itself is also inferior in design, and therefore more modern than those at HullabÎd, which belong probably to the 13th century, and the architecture of his shrine cannot be carried back beyond the 15th century. It may even be considerably more modern. It is disappointing to find the whole so recent in date, but there seems no excuse for ascribing to this temple a greater antiquity than that just mentioned.

Tiruvalur.

The temple at Tiruvalur, about thirty miles west of Madras, contrasts curiously with that at Tanjore in the principles on which it was designed, and serves to exemplify the mode in which, unfortunately, most Dravidian temples were aggregated.

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193. Inner Temple at Tiruvalur.

Scale 200 ft. to 1 in.

The nucleus here was a small village temple (Woodcut No. 193), drawn to the same scale as the plan of Tanjore in Woodcut No. 190. It is a double shrine, dedicated to Siva and his consort, standing in a cloistered court which measures 192 ft. by 156 ft. over all, and has one gopura in front. So far there is nothing to distinguish it from the ordinary temples found in every village. It, however, at some subsequent period became sacred or rich, and a second or outer court was added, measuring 470 ft. each way, with two gopuras, higher than the original one, and containing within its walls numberless little shrines and porches.

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194. Temple at Tiruvalur. (From a Drawing in Ram Raz’s ‘Hindu Architecture’.)

Additions were again made at some subsequent date, the whole being enclosed in a court 940 ft. by 701 ft.—this time with five gopuras, and several important shrines. When the last addition was made, it was intended to endow the temple with one of those great halls which were considered indispensable in temples of the first class. Generally they had—or were intended to have—1000 columns; this one has only 688, and only about one-half of these carry beams or a roof of any sort. There can, however, be very little doubt that, had time and money been available, it would have been completed to the typical extent. As it is, it is probably owing to our management of the revenues of the country that the requisite funds were not forthcoming, and the buildings stopped probably within the limits of the present century.

The general effect of such a design as this may be gathered from the bird’s-eye view (Woodcut No. 194). As an artistic design, nothing can be worse. The gateways, irregularly spaced in a great blank wall, lose half their dignity from their positions; and the bathos of their decreasing in size and elaboration, as they approach the sanctuary, is a mistake which nothing can redeem. We may admire beauty of detail, and be astonished at the elaboration and evidence of labour, if they are found in such a temple as this, but as an architectural design it is altogether detestable.

Seringham.

The temple which has been most completely marred by this false system of design is that at Seringham, which is certainly the largest, and, if its principle of design could be reversed, would be one of the finest temples in the south of India (Woodcut No. 195, p. 349). Here the central enclosure is quite as small and as insignificant as that at Tiruvalur, and except that its dome is gilt has nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary village temple. The next enclosure, however, is more magnificent. It encloses the hall of 1000 columns, which measures some 450 ft. by 130 ft. The number of columns is, I believe, sixteen in front by sixty in depth, or 960 altogether; but I do not feel sure there is not some mistake in my observations, and that the odd forty are to be found somewhere. They consequently are not spaced more than 10 ft. apart from centre to centre; and as at one end the hall is hardly over 10 ft. high, and in the loftiest place only 15 ft. or 16 ft., and the pillars spaced nearly evenly over the floor, it will be easily understood how little effect such a building really produces. They are, however, each of a single block of granite, and all carved more or less elaborately. A much finer portico stretches across this court from gopura to gopura; the pillars in it are much more widely spaced, and the central aisle is double that of those on the sides, and crosses the portico in the centre, making a transept; its height, too, is double that of the side aisles. It is a pleasing and graceful architectural design; the other is only an evidence of misapplied labour. The next four enclosures have nothing very remarkable in them, being generally occupied by the Brahmans and persons connected with the temple. Each, however, has, or was intended to have, four gopuras, one on each face, and some of these are of very considerable magnificence. The outer enclosure is, practically, a bazaar, filled with shops, where pilgrims are lodged, and fed, and fleeced. The wall that encloses it measures 2475 ft. by 2880 ft.,[379] and, had its gopuras been finished, they would have surpassed all others in the south to the same extent as these dimensions exceed those of any other known temple. The northern gopura, leading to the river and Trichinopoly, measures 130 ft. in width by 100 ft. in depth; the opening through it measures 21 ft. 6 in., and twice that in height. The four jambs or gateposts are each of a single slab of granite, more than 40 ft. in height, and the roofing-slabs throughout measure from 23 ft. to 24 ft. Had the ordinary brick pyramid of the usual proportion been added to this, the whole would have risen to a height of nearly 300 ft. Even as it is, it is one of the most imposing masses in southern India, and probably—perhaps because it never was quite finished—it is in severe and good taste throughout.[380] Its date, fortunately, is perfectly well known, as its progress was stopped by its being occupied and fortified by the French during our ten years’ struggle with them for the possession of Trichinopoly; and if we allow fifty years for its progress, even this would bring the whole within the limits of the 18th century. The other three gopuras of this enclosure are in the same style, and were commenced on the same scale, but not being so far advanced when we stopped the work, their gateposts project above their walls in a manner that gives them a very singular appearance, and has led to some strange theories as to their design.

Looked at from a distance, or in any direction where the whole can be grasped at once, these fourteen or fifteen great gate towers cannot fail to produce a certain effect, as may be gathered from the view in Woodcut No. 195; but even then it can only be by considering them as separate buildings. As parts of one whole, their arrangement is exactly that which enables them to produce the least possible effect that can be obtained either from their mass or ornament. Had the four great outer gopuras formed the four sides of a central hall, and the others gone on diminishing, in three or four directions, to the exterior, the effect of the whole would have been increased in a surprising degree. To accomplish this, however, one

195. View of the eastern half of the Great Temple at Seringham. (From a Photograph.)

other defect must have been remedied: a gateway even 150 ft. wide in a wall nearly 2000 ft. in extent is a solecism nothing can redeem; but had the walls been broken in plan or star-shaped, like the plans of Chalukyan temples, light and shade would have been obtained, and due proportions of parts, without any inconvenience. But if the Dravidians ever had it in them to think of such things, it was not during the 17th and 18th centuries, to which everything in this temple seems to belong.

Chillambaram.

The temple at Chillambaram is one of the most venerated, and has also the reputation of being one of the most ancient, temples in southern India. It was there, therefore, if anywhere, that I at one time hoped to find some remains that would help to elucidate the history of the style. It was, besides, so far removed from any capital city or frequented haunt of man that one might hope to find its original form unaltered.

It is old, but I am afraid the traditions that connect its foundation with Hiranya Verma of Kashmir, in the beginning of the 6th century, on which I was at one time inclined to rely,[381] are of too impalpable a nature to be depended upon. I see no great reason for doubting that there may have been a connexion between the kings of Chola and those of Kashmir at the period; but I cannot see anything in this temple either of so early an age, or any feature in the style of Kashmiri architecture. On the other hand, the foundation of the temple appears to be clearly described in the following passage of the Kongadesa Raja Kal:—“Vira Chola Raya (A.D. 927 to 977) one day saw on the sea-shore the SabhÁpati of Chillambara (Siva), attended by Parvati, dancing and beating the damaraka (a kind of drum); he therefore expended great sums of money in building the Kanaka, or Golden Sabha.”[382] A little further on, it is said, “Ari Vari Deva (A.D. 1004), observing that his grandfather had built only a Kanaka SabhÁ to the Chillambara deity, he built gopuras, maddals (enclosures), madapanas (image-houses), sabhÁs (holy places or apartments), and granted many jewels to the deity.” If this last could be applied to the great enclosure, it would be a most important date; but on a careful examination of the whole circumstances of the case I feel convinced that these passages refer only to the two inner enclosures, B B, at the west end of the tank (Woodcut No. 196). They, indeed, measuring about 320 ft. square, appear to have been the whole of the original temple, at least in the 10th and 11th centuries, always supposing

that any part of the building is really as old as this. On the whole, however, I am inclined to believe that this inner temple is really the one referred to in the above extract. The temple of Parvati, C, on the north of the tank, was added afterwards, most probably in the 14th or 15th century, and to that age the great gopuras and the second enclosure also belong. The hall of 1000 columns, E, was almost certainly erected between 1595 and 1685, at which time, we learn from the Mackenzie MSS., the kings of the locality made many donations to the fane.[383] It was then, also, in all probability, the outer enclosure was commenced; but it never was carried out, being in most places only a few feet above the foundation.

The oldest thing now existing here is a little shrine in the inmost enclosure (opposite A in the plan), with a little porch of two pillars, about 6 ft. high, but resting on a stylobate, ornamented with dancing figures, more graceful and more elegantly executed than any other of their class, so far as I know, in southern India. At the sides are wheels and horses, the whole being intended to represent a car, as is frequently the case in these temples. Whitewash and modern alterations have sadly disfigured this gem, but enough remains to show how exquisite, and consequently how ancient, it was. It was dedicated to Verma, the god of dancing, in allusion, probably, to the circumstance above mentioned as leading to the foundation of the temple.

In front of it is a shrine of very unusual architecture, with a tall copper roof, which, I have no doubt, represents or is the golden sabhÁ above referred to, and in front of this is a gopura and pillared porch, making up what seems to have been the temple of Vira Deva. The outer enclosure, with the buildings it contains, are, it appears, those of Ari Vari.

The temple of Parvati, C, is principally remarkable for its porch, which is of singular elegance. The following woodcut (No. 197) gives some idea of its present appearance, and the section (Woodcut No. 198) explains its construction. The outer aisles are 6 ft. in width, the next 8 ft., but the architect reserved all his power for the central aisle, which measures 21 ft. 6 in. in width, making the whole 50 ft. or thereabouts. In order to roof this without employing stones of such dimensions as would crush the supports, recourse was had to vaulting, or rather bracketing, shafts, and these brackets were again tied together by transverse purlins, all in stone, and the system was continued till the width was reduced to a dimension that could easily be spanned. As the whole is enclosed in a court surrounded by galleries two storeys in height, the effect of the whole is singularly pleasing.

Opposite to this, across the tank, is the hall of 1000 columns, similar in many respects to that at Seringham, above described, but probably slightly more modern. Here the pillars are arranged twenty-four in front by forty-one in depth, making 984; but in order to get a central space, four in the porch, then twenty-eight, then two, and again twenty-four, have been omitted, altogether fifty-eight; but, on the other hand, those of the external portico must be added, which nearly balances the loss, and makes up the 1000.[384] It must be

confessed this forest of granite pillars, each of a single stone, and all more or less carved and ornamented, does produce a certain grandeur of effect, but the want of design in the arrangement, and of subordination of parts, detract painfully from the effect that might have been produced. Leaving out the pillars in the centre is the one redeeming feature, and that could easily have been effected without the brick vaults, formed of radiating arches, which are employed here—another certain proof of the modern age of the building. These vaults are certainly integral, and as certainly could not have been employed till after the Mahomedans had settled in the south, and taught the Hindus how to use them.

Although this temple has been aggregated at different ages, and grown by accident rather than design like those at Tiruvalur and Seringham just described, it avoids the great defect of these temples, for though like them it has no tall central object to give dignity to the whole from the outside, internally the centre of its great court is occupied by a tank, round which the various objects are grouped without at all interfering with one another. The temple itself is one important object, to the eastward of it; the Parvati temple another, on the north, and forms a pleasing pendant to the 1000-columned choultrie on the south. Alongside the Parvati another temple was commenced (Woodcut No. 199), with a portico of square pillars, four in front, and all most elaborately ornamented, but in such a manner as not to interfere with their outline or solidity.

From its unfinished and now ruined state, it is not easy to say to whom this temple was dedicated—most probably Soubramanya—nor to feel sure of its age. From its position, however, and the character of its ornamentation, there seems little doubt that it belongs to the end of the 17th and first half of the 18th century. From its style, I would be inclined to ascribe it to the earlier date, but in that case it is difficult to understand its not being finished. When they had money to erect the great hall, and to commence a new enclosure, they might certainly have spared enough to complete this solitary shrine.

Ramisseram.

If it were proposed to select one temple which should exhibit all the beauties of the Dravidian style in their greatest perfection, and at the same time exemplify all its characteristic defects of design, the choice would almost inevitably fall on that at Ramisseram, in the island of Paumben (Woodcut No. 200). In no other temple has the same amount of patient industry been exhibited as here, and in none, unfortunately, has that labour been so thrown away for want of a design appropriate for its display. It is not that this temple has grown by successive increments like those last described; it was begun and finished on a previously settled plan, as regularly and as undeviatingly carried out as that at Tanjore, but on a principle so diametrically opposed to it, that while the temple at Tanjore produces an effect greater than is due to its mass or detail, this one, with double its dimensions and ten times its elaboration, produces no effect externally, and internally can only be seen in detail, so that the parts hardly in any instance aid one another in producing the effect aimed at.

The only part of the temple which is of a different age from the rest is a small vimana, of very elegant proportions, that stands in the garden, on the right hand of the visitor as he enters from the west[385] (D). It has, however, been so long exposed—like the temple on the shore at Mahavellipore—to the action of the sea-air, that its details are so corroded they cannot now be made out, and its age cannot consequently be ascertained from them. It is safe, however, to assert that it is more modern than any of the rock-cut examples above quoted; possibly it may be of the 11th or 12th century. Its dimensions may be guessed as 50 ft. in height, by 30 ft. or 40 ft. in plan, so that it hardly forms a feature in so large a temple. From the four bulls that occupy the platform under the dome, it is evident it was originally dedicated to Siva, as the whole temple now apparently is, though the scene of Rama’s most celebrated exploit, and bearing his name.

Externally the temple is enclosed by a wall 20 ft. in height, and possessing four gopuras, one on each face, which have this peculiarity, that they alone, of all those I know in India, are built wholly of stone from the base to the summit. The western one (D) alone, however, is finished, and owing apparently to the accident of its being in stone, it is devoid of figure-sculpture—some half-dozen plaster casts that now adorn it having been added quite recently. Those on the north and south (A and C) are hardly higher than the wall in which they stand, and are consequently called the ruined gateways. Such a thing is, however, so far as I know, unknown in southern India. Partly from their form, and more from the solidity of their construction, nothing but an earthquake could well damage them, and their age is not such as would superinduce ruin from decay of material. These, in fact, have never been raised higher, and their progress was probably stopped in the beginning of the last century, when Mahomedan, Mahratta, and other foreign invaders checked the prosperity of the land, and destroyed the wealth of the priesthood. The eastern faÇade has two entrances and two gopuras. The smaller, not shown in the plan, is finished. The larger one (B in the plan) never was carried higher than we now see it. Had it been finished,[386] it would have been one of the largest of its class, and being wholly in stone, and consequently without its outline being broken by sculpture, it would have reproduced more nearly the effect of an Egyptian propylon than any other example of its class in India.

The glory, however, of this temple resides in its corridors. These, as will be seen by the plan, extend to nearly 4000 feet in length. The breadth varies from 20 ft. to 30 ft. of free floor space, and their height is apparently about 30 ft. from the floor to the centre of the roof. Each pillar or pier is compound, and richer and more elaborate in design than those of the Parvati porch at Chillambaram (Woodcut No. 197), and are certainly more modern in date.

The general appearance of these corridors may be gathered from the annexed woodcut (No. 201), but no engraving, even on a much more extended scale, can convey the impression produced by such a display of labour when extended to an uninterrupted length of 700 ft. None of our cathedrals are more than 500 ft., and even the nave of St. Peter’s is only 600 ft. from the door to the apse. Here the side corridors are 700 ft. long, and open into transverse galleries as rich in detail as themselves. These, with the varied devices and modes of lighting, produce an effect that is not equalled certainly anywhere in India. The side corridors are generally free from figure-sculpture, and consequently, from much of the vulgarity of the age to which they belong, and, though narrower, produce a more pleasing effect. The central corridor leading from the sanctuary is adorned on one side by portraits of the rajas of Ramnad in the 17th century, and opposite them, of their secretaries. Even they, however, would be tolerable, were it not that within the last few years they have been painted with a vulgarity that is inconceivable on the part of the descendants of those who built this fane. Not only they, however, but the whole of the architecture has first been dosed with repeated coats of whitewash, so as to take off all the sharpness of detail, and then painted with blue, green, red, and yellow washes, so as to disfigure and destroy its effect to an extent that must be seen to be believed. Nothing can more painfully prove the degradation to which our system has reduced the population than this profanity. No upper class, and consequently no refinement, now remains, and the priesthood, instead of being high bred and intellectual Brahmans, must be sunk into a state of debasement from which nothing can now probably redeem them.

Assuming, however, for the nonce, that this painting never had been perpetrated, still the art displayed here would be very inferior to that of such a temple as, for instance, HullabÎd, in the Mysore, to be described further on. The perimeter, however, of that temple is only 700 ft.; here we have corridors extending to 4000 ft., carved on both sides, and in the hardest granite. It is the immensity of the labour here displayed that impresses us, much more than its quality, and that, combined with a certain picturesqueness and mystery, does produce an effect which is not surpassed by any other temple in India, and by very few elsewhere.

The age of this temple is hardly doubtful. From first to last its style—excepting the old vimana—is so uniform and unaltered that its erection could hardly have lasted during a hundred years, and if this is so, it must have been during the 17th century, when the Ramnad rajas were at the height of their independence and prosperity, and when their ally or master, Tirumulla Nayak, was erecting buildings in the same identical style at MÁdura. It may have been commenced fifty years earlier (1550), and the erection of its gopuras may have extended into the 18th century, but these seem the possible limits of deviation. Being so recent, any one on the spot could easily ascertain the facts. They could indeed be determined very nearly from the photographs, were it not for the whitewash and paint, which so disfigure the details as to make them almost unrecognisable.

MÁdura.

If the native authorities consulted by the late Professor Wilson in compiling his Historical sketch of the Kingdom of PÁndya could be relied upon, it would seem that the foundation of the dynasty ought to be placed some five or six centuries before the Christian Era.[387] Even, however, if this is disputed, the fact of the southern part of the Peninsula being described as the “Regio Pandionis” by classical authorities is sufficient to prove that a kingdom bearing that name did exist there in the early centuries of the Christian Era. Their first capitals, however, seem to have been Kurkhi, possibly the Kolkhi of the Periplus, near Ramnad, and Kalyana, near Cape Comorin. The story of Kula Sekhara founding MÁdura, and the fabulous incidents with which the tale is adorned, is one of the favourite legends of the south, and is abundantly illustrated in sculptures of Tirumulla Nayak’s choultrie and in other buildings of the capital.

For our present purposes it is hardly worth while to attempt to investigate the succession of the dates of the seventy-three kings who are said to have succeeded one another before the accession of the Nayak or Naik dynasty, in 1532, inasmuch as no building is now known to exist in the kingdom that can claim, even on the most shadowy grounds, to have been erected by any of these kings. It may have been that, anterior to the rise of the great Chola dynasty, in the 10th and 11th century, that of MÁdura may have had a long period of prosperity and power; but certain it is, that if they did build anything of importance, its existence cannot now be identified. After that, for a while they seem to have been subjected to the Bellala dynasty of the Mysore, and the same Mahomedan invasion that destroyed that power in 1310 spread its baneful influence as far as Ramnad, and for two centuries their raids and oppressions kept the whole of southern India in a state of anarchy and confusion. Their power for evil was first checked by the rise of the great Hindu state of Vijayanagar, in the Tongabhadra, in the 14th century, and by the establishment, under its protection, of the Nayak dynasty by Viswanath Nayak, in the beginning of the 16th. After lasting 210 years, the last sovereign of the race—a queen—was first aided, and then betrayed, by Chanda Sahib the Nawaub of the Carnatic, who plays so important a part in our wars with the French in these parts.

It may be—indeed, probably is the case—that there are temples in the provinces that were erected before the rise of the Nayak dynasty, but certain it is that all those in the capital, with the great temple at Seringham, described above, were erected during the two centuries of their supremacy, and of those in the capital nine-tenths at least were erected during the long and prosperous reign of the tenth king of this dynasty, Tirumulla Nayak, or as he is more popularly known, Trimul Naik, who reigned from 1621 to 1657.[388]

Of his buildings, the most important, for our purposes[389] at least, is

the celebrated choultrie which he built for the reception of the presiding deity of the place, who consented to leave his dark cell in the temple and pay the king an annual visit of ten days’ duration, on condition of his building a hall worthy of his dignity, and where he could receive in a suitable manner the homage of the king and his subjects. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 202) the hall is 333 ft. long by 105 ft. in width, measured on the stylobate, and consists of four ranges of columns, all of which are different, and all most elaborately sculptured. An elevation of one is given (Woodcut No. 203), but is not so rich as those of the centre, which have life-sized figures attached to them, and are even more elaborate in their details. In this instance it will be observed that the detached bracketing shaft at Chillambaram has become attached to the square central pier, and instead of the light elegance that characterised that example, has become a solid pier, five or six feet in depth—richer certainly, but far from being either so elegant or so appropriate as the earlier example.

The view of the interior (Woodcut No. 204) gives some, but only a faint, idea of the effect. The sides are now closed with screens, and it is difficult to procure good photographs; but in effect, as in detail, it is identical with the corridors at Ramisseram, where the light is abundant.

As the date of this hall is perfectly well known—it took twenty-two years to erect it, 1623 to 1645—it becomes a fixed point in our chronology of the style. We can, for instance, assert with perfect certainty that the porch to Parvati’s shrine at Chillambaram (Woodcut No. 197) is certainly anterior to this, probably by a couple of centuries, and, with equal certainty that the corridors at Ramisseram are contemporary. From the history of the period we learn that the rajas of Ramnad were at times independent, at others at war with the Nayaks; but in Tirumulla Nayak’s time either his allies or dependants; and the style and design of the two buildings are so absolutely identical that they must belong to the same age. It is, indeed, most probable that the king of MÁdura may have assisted in the erection of the temple. If he had indeed been allowed any share in making the original design, the temple would probably have been a nobler building than it is; for, though the details are the same, his three-aisled hall leading to the sanctuary would have been a far grander feature architecturally than the singled-aisled corridors that lead nowhere. The expense of one of the single-aisled corridors at Ramisseram, 700 ft. long, would have been about the same as the triple-aisled choultrie at MÁdura, which is half their length. If, consequently, the choultrie cost a million sterling—as is confidently asserted—the temple must have cost between three and four millions; and such an estimate hardly seems excessive when we consider the amount of labour expended on it, and that the material in both is the hardest granite.

The faÇade of this hall, like that of almost all the great halls in the south of India, is adorned either with Yalis—monsters of the lion type trampling on an elephant—or, even more generally, by a group consisting of a warrior sitting on a rearing horse, whose feet are supported on the shields of foot soldiers, sometimes slaying men, sometimes tigers. These groups are found literally in hundreds in southern India, and, as works exhibiting difficulties overcome by patient labour, they are unrivalled, so far as I know, by anything found elsewhere. As works of art, they are the most barbarous, it may be said the most

vulgar, to be found in India, and do more to shake one’s faith in the civilization of the people who produced them than anything they did in any other department of art. Where these monstrosities are not introduced, the pillars of entrances are only enriched a little more than those of the interior, when the ornamentation is in better taste, and generally quite sufficiently rich for its purpose.

Immediately in front of his choultrie, Tirumulla Nayak commenced a gopura, which, had he lived to complete it, would probably have been the finest edifice of its class in southern India. It measures 174 ft. from north to south, and 107[390] ft. in depth. The entrance through it is 21 ft. 9 in. wide; and if it be true that its gateposts are 60 ft. (Tripe says 57 ft.) in height, that would have been the height of the opening.[391] It will thus be seen that it was designed on even a larger scale than that at Seringham, described above, and it certainly far surpasses that celebrated edifice in the beauty of its details. Its doorposts alone, whether 57 ft. or 60 ft. in height, are single blocks of granite, carved with the most exquisite scroll patterns of elaborate foliage, and all the other carvings are equally beautiful. Being unfinished, and consequently never consecrated, it has escaped whitewash, and alone, of all the buildings of MÁdura, its beauties can still be admired in their original perfection.

The great temple at MÁdura is a larger and far more important building than the choultrie; but, somehow or other, it has not attracted the attention of travellers to the same extent that the latter has. No one has ever attempted to make a plan of it, or to describe it in such detail as would enable others to understand its peculiarities. It possesses, however, all the characteristics of a first-class Dravidian temple, and, as its date is perfectly well known, it forms a landmark of the utmost value in enabling us to fix the relative date of other temples.

The sanctuary is said to have been built by Viswanath, the first king of the Nayak dynasty, A.D. 1520, which may possibly be the case; but the temple itself certainly owes all its magnificence to Tirumulla Nayak, A.D. 1622-1657, or to his elder brother, Muttu Virappa, who preceded him, and who built a mantapa, said to be the oldest thing now existing here. The Kalyana mantapa is said to have been built A.D. 1707, and the Tatta Suddhi in 1770. These, however, are insignificant parts compared with those which certainly owe their origin to Tirumulla Nayak.

The temple itself is a nearly regular rectangle, two of its sides measuring 720 ft. and 729 ft., the other two 834 ft. and 852 ft. It possessed four gopuras of the first class, and five smaller ones; a very beautiful tank, surrounded by arcades; and a hall of 1000 columns, whose sculptures surpass those of any other hall of its class I am acquainted with. There is a small shrine, dedicated to the goddess Minakshi, the tutelary deity of the place, which occupies the space of fifteen columns, so the real number is only 985; but it is not their number but their marvellous elaboration that makes it the wonder of the place, and renders it, in some respects, more remarkable than the choultrie about which so much has been said and written. I do not feel sure that this hall alone is not a greater work than the choultrie; taken in conjunction with the other buildings of the temple, it certainly forms a far more imposing group.

As mentioned above, the great Vaishnava temple at Seringham owes all its magnificence to buildings erected during the reign of the Nayak dynasty, whose second capital was Trichinopoly, and where they often resided. Within a mile, however, of that much-lauded temple is another, dedicated to Siva, under the title of JumbÚkeswara, which, though not so large as that dedicated to Sri Rangam, far surpasses it in beauty as an architectural object. The first gateway of the outer enclosure is not large, but it leads direct to the centre of a hall containing some 400 pillars. On the right these open on a tank fed by a perpetual spring, which is one of the wonders of the place.[392] The corresponding space on the left was intended to be occupied by the 600 columns requisite to make up the 1000, but this never was completed. Between the two gopuras of the second enclosure is a very beautiful portico of cruciform shape, leading to the door of the sanctuary, which, however, makes no show externally, and access to its interior is not vouchsafed to the profane.[393] The age of this temple is the same as that of its great rival, except that, being all of one design, it probably was begun and completed at once, and from the simplicity of its parts and details may be earlier than the great buildings of Tirumulla Nayak. If we assume A.D. 1600, with a margin of ten or fifteen years either way, we shall probably not err much in its date.

One of the great charms of this temple, when I visited it, was its purity. Neither whitewash nor red nor yellow paint had then sullied it, and the time-stain on the warm-coloured granite was all that relieved its monotony; but it sufficed, and it was a relief to contemplate it thus after some of the vulgarities I had seen. Now all this is altered. Like the pagodas at Ramisseram, and more so those at MÁdura, barbarous vulgarity has done its worst, and the traveller is only too fully justified in the contempt with which he speaks of these works of a great people which have fallen into the hands of such unworthy successors.

Tinnevelly.

Though neither among the largest nor the most splendid temples of southern India, that at Tinnevelly will serve to give a good general idea of the arrangement of these edifices, and has the advantage of having been built on one plan, and at one time, without subsequent alteration or change. Like the little cell in the Tiruvalur temple (Woodcut No. 193), it has the singularity of being a double temple, the great square being divided into equal portions, of which one is dedicated to the god Siva, the other to his consort Parvati. The preceding plan (Woodcut No. 205) represents one of the halves, which, though differing in arrangement from the other, is still so like it as to make the representation and description of one sufficient for both.

The general dimensions of the whole enclosure are 508 ft. by 756 ft., the larger dimension being divided into two equal portions of 378 ft. each. There are three gateways to each half, and one in the wall dividing the two; the principal gateway faces the entrance to the temple, and the lateral ones are opposite each other. An outer portico precedes the great gateway, leading internally to a very splendid porch, which, before reaching the gateway of the inner enclosure, branches off on the right to the intermediate gateway, and on the left to the great hall of 1000 columns—10 pillars in width by 100 in depth.

The inner enclosure is not concentric with the outer, and, as usual, has only one gateway. The temple itself consists of a cubical cell, surmounted by a vimana or spire, preceded by two porches, and surrounded by triple colonnades. In other parts of the enclosure are smaller temples, tanks of water, gardens, colonnades, &c., but neither so numerous nor so various as are generally found in Indian temples of this class.

The great 1000-pillared portico in the temple is one of the least poetic of its class in India. It consists of a regiment of pillars 10 deep and extending to 100 in length, without any break or any open space or arrangement. Such a forest of pillars does, no doubt, produce a certain effect; but half that number, if arranged as in some of the Chalukyan or Jaina temples, would produce a far nobler impression. The aim of the Dravidians seems to have been to force admiration by the mere exhibition of inordinate patient toil.

Combaconum.

If the traditions of the natives could be trusted, Combaconum—one of the old capitals of the Chola dynasty—is one of the places where we might hope to find something very ancient. There are fragments of older temples, indeed, to be found everywhere, but none in situ. All the older buildings seem to have been at some time ruined and rebuilt, probably on the same site, but with that total disregard to antiquity which is characteristic of the Hindus in all ages. One portico, in a temple dedicated to Sri Rama, is very like that leading

from the second to the third gopura in the temple of JumbÚkeswara, described above, but, if anything, it is slightly more modern. There is also one fine gopura in the town, represented in the last woodcut (No. 206). It is small, however, in comparison with those we have just been describing, being only 84 ft. across and about 130 ft. in height. Those of Seringham and MÁdura have, or were intended to have, at least double these dimensions.

It is, however, a richly-ornamented example of its class, and the preceding woodcut conveys a fair impression of the effect of these buildings generally. It is not old enough to be quite of the best age, but it is still not so modern as to have lost all the character and expression of the earlier examples.

Conjeveram.

Conjeveram is another city where tradition would lead us to expect more of antiquity than in almost any city of the south. It is said to have been founded by Adondai, the illegitimate son of Kolotunga Chola, in the 11th or 12th century, and to have succeeded Combaconum as the capital of the Chola Mandalam. Even before this, however, it is supposed to have been inhabited by Buddhists,[394] and that they were succeeded by Jains. If this is so, all that can be said is, that neither of these religions have left any traces of their existence on the spot, and many passages in the Mackenzie MSS. would lead us to suppose that it was a jungle inhabited by savage Kurumbars when the Cholas took possession of it.

Be this as it may, the two towns, Great and Little Conjeveram, possess groups of temples as picturesque and nearly as vast as any to be found elsewhere. The great temple at the first-named place possesses some first-class gopuras, though no commanding vimana. It has, too, a hall of 1000 columns, several large and fine mantapas, large tanks with flights of stone steps, and all the requisites of a first-class Dravidian temple, but all thrown together as if by accident. No two gopuras are opposite one another, no two walls parallel, and there is hardly a right angle about the place. All this creates a picturesqueness of effect seldom surpassed in these temples, but deprives it of that dignity we might expect from such parts if properly arranged.

There may be some part I did not see[395] which may be older, but certainly none of the principal buildings are so old as Parvati’s shrine at Chillambaram, but all seem equally to be anterior to the great building epoch of the Nayak dynasty. They probably are the last efforts of the Cholas; but here, again, whitewash and red paint have done so much to obliterate the record, that it is not safe to dogmatise regarding the age of any buildings in either of the two Conjeverams.

Vellore and Peroor.

Although the temples at Vellore and at Peroor, near Coimbatore, can only rank among the second class as regards size, they possess porticos of extreme interest to architectural history, and are consequently worthy of more attention than has been bestowed upon them. That at Vellore, however, is unfortunately situated in the fort occupied by the British, and has consequently been utilised as a store. Walls have been built between its piers, and whitewash and fittings have reduced it to that condition which we think appropriate for the noblest works of art in India. Enough, however, still remains to enable us to see that it is one of the most elegant as well as one of the oldest porches or mantapas in the south. As will be seen from the woodcut (No. 207), the Yalis and rearing horsemen are clearly and sharply cut, and far from being so extravagant as they sometimes are. The great cornice too, with its double flexures and its little trellice-work of supports, is not only very elegant in form, but one of those marvels of patient industry, such as are to be found hardly anywhere else. There are many such cornices, however, in the south: one at Avadea Covill is deeper and more elaborate than even this one. The outer facing there is said to be only about an inch in thickness, and its network of supports is more elaborate and more delicate than those at Vellore, though it is difficult to understand how either was ever executed in so hard a material. The traditions of the place assign the erection of the Vellore porch to the year 1350, and though this is perhaps being too precise, it is not far from the truth. The bracket shafts (Woodcut No. 208) are similar but even more elegant than those in Parvati’s porch at Chillambaram; but they are—some of them at least—attached to the pier by very elegant open-work, such as is found in Pratapa Rudra’s temple at Worangul (Woodcut No. 217) or in the windows at HullabÎd. As both these examples are earlier than 1300, it might seem that this one was so also, but it is difficult to feel certain when comparing buildings so distant in locality, and belonging to different styles of art. On the whole, however, I am inclined to believe that between 1300 and 1400 will be found the true date of this porch.

The date of the porch at Peroor is ascertained within narrow limits by the figure of a Sepoy loading a musket being carved on the base of one of its pillars, and his costume and the shape of his arm are exactly those we find in contemporary pictures of the wars of Aurungzebe, or the early Mahrattas, in the beginning of the 18th century. As shown in Woodcut No. 209, the bracket shafts are there attached to the piers as in Tirumulla Nayak’s buildings, and though the general character of the architecture is the same, there is a coarseness in the details, and a marked inferiority in the figure-sculpture, that betrays the distance of date between these two examples.

Slight as the difference may appear to the unpractised eye, it is within the four centuries that include the dates of these two buildings (1350 to 1750) that practically the whole history of the Dravidian

temple architecture is included. There are rock-cut examples before the first date, and some structural buildings in Dharwar on a smaller scale, which are older, but it is safe to assert that nine-tenths, at least, or more, of those which are found south of the Tongabhadra, were erected between these dates.

Of course it is not meant to assert that, before the first of these dates, there were not structural temples in the south of India. So far from this being the case, it seems nearly certain that during the six or seven centuries that elapsed between the carving of the rocks at Mahavellipore and the erection of the Vellore pagoda, numerous buildings must have been erected in order that a style should be elaborated and so fixed that it should endure for five centuries afterwards, with so little change, and with only that degradation in detail, which is the fatal characteristic of art in India.

It seems impossible that the horsemen, the Yalis, and above all, the great cornice of double curvature, shown in the woodcut (No. 207), could have been brought to these fixed forms without long experience, and the difficulty is to understand how they could ever have been elaborated in stone at all, as they are so unlike lithic forms found anywhere else; yet they are not wooden, nor is there any trace in them of any of their details being derived from wooden architecture, as is so evidently the case with the Buddhist architecture of the north. The one suggestion that occurs to me is that they are derived from terra-cotta forms. Frequently, at the present day, figures of men on horseback larger than life, or of giants on foot, are seen near the village temples made of pottery, their hollow forms of burnt clay, and so burnt as to form a perfect terra-cotta substance. Most of the figures also on the gopuras are not in plaster as is generally said, but are also formed of clay burnt. The art has certainly been long practised in the south, and if we adopt the theory that it was used for many ornamental purposes before wood or stone, it will account for much that is otherwise unintelligible in the arts of the south.

Vijayanagar.

The dates just quoted will no doubt sound strange and prosaic to those who are accustomed to listen to the childish exaggerations of the Brahmans in speaking of the age of their temples. There is, however, luckily a test besides the evidence above quoted, which, if it could be perfectly applied, would settle the question at once.

When in the beginning of the 14th century the Mahomedans from Delhi first made their power seriously felt in the south, they struck down the kingdom of the Hoisala Bellalas in 1310, and destroyed their capital of HullabÎd; and in 1322 Worangul, which had been previously attacked, was finally destroyed, and it is said they then carried their victorious arms as far as Ramnad. The Mahomedans did not, however, at that time make any permanent settlement in the south, and the consequence was, that as soon as the Hindus were able to recover from the panic, Bukka and Harihara, princes it is said of the deposed house of Worangul, gathered around them the remnants of the destroyed states, and founded a new state in the town of Vijayanagar on the Tongabhadra. An earlier city it is said had been founded there in 1118, by a Vijaya Rayal, but only as a dependency of the Mysore Raj, and there is consequently no reason for supposing that any of the buildings in the city belong to that period, nor indeed till the new dynasty founded by Bukka had consolidated its power, which was certainly not before the beginning of the 15th century.

The city was finally destroyed by the Mahomedans in 1565, but during the two previous centuries it maintained a gallant struggle against the Bahmuny and Adil Shahi dynasties of Kalburgah and Bijapur, and was in fact the barrier that prevented the Moslems from taking possession of the whole country as far as Cape Comorin.

Its time of greatest prosperity was between the accession of Krishna Deva, 1508, and the death of Achutya Rayal, 1542, and it is to their reigns that the finest monuments in the city must be ascribed. There is, perhaps, no other city in all India in which ruins exist in such profusion or in such variety as in Vijayanagar, and as they are all certainly comprised within the century and a half, or at the utmost the two centuries, that preceded the destruction of the city, their analogies afford us dates that hardly admit of dispute.

Among those in the city the most remarkable is that dedicated to Vitoba, a local manifestation of Vishnu. It was erected by Achutya Rayal, A.D. 1529-1542, and never was finished; and if it were not that no successor ever cares in India to complete the works begun by his predecessor, we might fancy the works were interrupted by the siege. The principal part of the temple consists of a porch, represented in the annexed woodcut (No. 210). It is wholly in granite, and carved with a boldness and expression of power nowhere surpassed in the buildings of its class.[396] As will be observed, it has all the characteristic peculiarities of the Dravidian style: the bold cornice of double flexure, the detached shafts, the Yalis, the richly-carved stylobate, &c. But what interests us most here is that it forms an exact half-way house in style between such porches as those at Vellore and Chillambaram, and that of Tirumulla Nayak at MÁdura. The bracket shafts are detached here, it is true, but they are mere ornaments, and have lost their meaning. The cornice is as bold as any, but has lost its characteristic supports, and other changes have been made, which would inevitably have led in a short time to the new style of the Nayak dynasty.

210. View of Porch of Temple of Vitoba at Vijayanagar. (From a Photograph by Mr. Neill.)