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History of India
Language
and Architecture
of Ancient India
Samskrita, the Language of the
Gods
The Vedic language (later
called as Sanskrit) was akin to languages of the European continent spoken
by tribesmen around 2000 B.C.E. The earliest surviving Sanskrit literature
is the Rig Veda. As time went on many of the words of the original
language were forgotten and became obsolete. In 4th Century B.C.E., Panini
(a grammarian in Takshashila) wrote a great grammar work in eight chapters
called Ashtadhyayi. This standardization of the language resulted
in a perfected language called Samskrita (refined
language-anglicized as Sanskrit). This classical Sanskrit became the
language of the priestly class and later of the governing class. The
popular dialect of the language that developed naturally was called as
Prakrit or Prakrita, the unrefined language. Prakrit was
the spoken language of India for almost a thousand years between Buddha
Period to the Gupta Period. The language of the edicts of Ashoka’s time
was in Prakrit. Prakrit had several regional dialects. The
most popular in the North during Buddha’s period was Pali. Several
Buddhist texts were written in Pali. Magadhan Empire had a dialect called Magadhi. Another form was
Ardha-magadhi (Half Magadhi) that became the sacred language of
Mahavira’s Jains. Other important Prakrits were Saureshi and
Maharastri. Bengali and a language used by Jains of Gujarat in the
Middle Ages called Apabrahmsa also are derived from Prakrit.
All of the modern vernaculars spoken in Northern India today are direct
descendents of Sanskrit and Prakrit.
The South however developed its own languages, though Sanskrit influenced
them, at a later date. The main languages of the South are: Tamil,
Kannada, Telugu, Tulu and Malayalam. Collectively these are called Dravidian
languages (Panchbhasha). Sanskrit naturally influenced Tulu, Kannanda and Telugu, spoken, in
more northern regions of the South, more than Tamil. Malayalam, which is closely
related to Tulu and Tamil, became a separate language in the 11th Century.
The script of the Prakrit language may be similar to the Harappa
scripts, though those scripts have not been deciphered. There are visual
resemblances between the two scripts. There are no surviving evidences of
any scripts during the assimilation of the Vedas or Upanishads. The first
evidence of written script is seen at the Ashoka’s inscriptions (written
in Brahmi Script). These are from the 3rd Century B.C.E. The
inscriptions written on stone pillars not only survived but also
demonstrated a sophisticated language of purely Indian descent and led to
the belief that the written language had developed in India long before
this script. The written language was then spread far and wide, especially
to South East Asia during Ashoka’s reign. Whether Brahmi script is
related to Harappa script or to the Semitic script is controversial. Local
variations to the Brahmi script led to the practice of joining of
letters and words together with a line on the top of the letters, like
that of today’s Hindi script, and came to be known as Devanagari
script (script of the City of Gods). In the South written language
flourished in the 5th and 6th Centuries with the language taking a more
spherical shape as in Tulu, Kannada and Telugu or the angular Tamil.
Patanjali wrote a treatise on Panini’s grammar. Another grammarian and
lexicographer of fame was Amara Simha from the 4th century C.E., the
author of Amarakosha, a dictionary of synonyms written in the form of
poetry for easy memorization.
Temples of India
The oldest surviving
structures of ancient India are its temples. It gives us a glimpse of the
glory of architecture that was taken to its summit with solid stone
structures that even today stand as monuments to the richness of the
imaginations of the ancient Indians.
Glorious temples built by great dynasties of the past stand in proof of
one of the greatest civilizations of the world. Though temples have been
built in the early history of India, none of them have survived as they
were built from wood and clay rather than stone. Cave temples were the
first temples that have survived for more than thousand years. Hindu temples
were built in stone architecture from about 8th Century on up to 16th
Century, especially in the Peninsula. Ornate pillars with stone carved
towers stand as monuments of glory to their builders. As the North was
already under the influence of the Muslim rule, the independent South took
the lead in building glorious architectural masterpieces dedicated to the
gods of their belief.
Cave temples and Rock-cut temples
Earliest temples that have
survived today are mainly the cave temples. Starting from the Mauryan
period with their simple designs, the cave temples began to be more
complex and sophisticated as time went on. Intricately sculpted pillars,
animals and godheads were carved in solid rocks, frequently on hillsides,
systematically from front to back and top to bottom. Some glorious
sculptures such as the Rathas or chariots for gods were carved from
single freestanding rocks (monolithic). The most famous of the cave
temples are in Ajanta, where there are no less than twenty seven
caves that were first carved on the hillside as early as 2nd Century B.C.E
and as late as 7th Century C.E., depicting mainly Buddhist teachings.
About thirty miles north is the massive Ellora caves, where there
are about thirty-four caves, carved between 5th and 8th Centuries C.E. The
Rashtrakuta emperor, Krishna I (757-773 C.E.), built the great Kailasa
temple here. Also in the 7th Century C.E. seventeen rock-cut temples were
built in Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram), near Chennai by the Pallava
kings. Narasimhavarman II Rajasimha added the famous Shore temple in
Mamllapuram around 700 C.E. The famous seven pagodas are seen here. In an
island off the shores of Mumbai one can see the cave temple called as the
Elephanta caves. The colossal Trimurthy figure of Shiva is carved
in one of the caves.
Pallavas built temples in Mamallapuram and the Kailasanath temple in
Kanchipuram in the 6th and 8th Centuries. Kailasanatha temple of
Kanchipuram has a pyramidal tower like a stupa (of Buddhism) over the
shrine. The Chalukyas were busy with their own temples in Badami,
Aihole and Pattadakal. Two remarkable temples in Pattadakal were built
by two sisters in commemoration of the victories of their husband,
Chalukya Vikramaditya II over the Pallavas. These are the Mallikarjuna and
Virupaksha temples of Pattadakal. The Nataraja temple in
Chidambaram was built between 6th and 8th Centuries. The great
Bhrihadishvara temple of Tanjavur was built by Rajaraja Chola
(985-1014). His son, Rajendra Chola built the temple near Kumbakonam.
Both these temples contain elaborate pillars and halls with beautiful
designs. In addition they have glorious pyramidal towers (Shikara
or Vimana) of carved stone, rising two hundred feet into the air
over the sanctum sanctorum (garbha griha). The Pandya kings,
who supplanted the Chola dynasty, built fortified temples with colossal
towers at the entrance way (called the gopuram) rather than over
the shrine itself. They added to Pallava temples or built new ones
as in Madurai and in Srirangam.
At the same time the Hoysalas of Dorasamudra (11th to 14th Century
C.E.), built temples of a different style in Belur and Halebid
and later in Somnathpur. These were temples without the
entrance towers and shaped in a polygonal or stellate form rather than the
rectangular base. Beautiful carvings of stone were incorporated in the
walls and ornate stone pillars surrounded the inner hall. The famous
Shila-balika (stone-woman) can be seen here with all the intricately
carved details. The Vijayanagara Empire (14th to 16th Century) contributed
to the art of temple building with the Vittala temple in Hampi
with its exuberantly carved pillars and decorative imagination
unsurpassed. Krishna Deva Raya was also the builder of temple in
Kanchipuram. Vijayanagara Empire also added a tower (gopuram) to the
temple at Belur at a later date to commemorate the defeat of Muslims. The
Nayaks after the decline of the Vijayanagara Empire built the bulk
of the great temple complex of Madurai dedicated to Meenakshi,
the consort of Shiva, as well as the Rock temple in Tirchirapalli.
As mentioned earlier the temples in the North India vanished during the
Middle Ages and even the holy temple at Varanasi was desecrated during the
Muslim rule in the North. However, some temples withstood the Muslim
assault and miraculously escaped destruction. There is the temple at
Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh built by the Chandella kings of
Bundelkhand (late 9th Century). Khajuraho temple demonstrated vivid
sculptures of couples in embrace, and with its sexual mysticism was thought
to be the center of Tantric cult long ago. During the medieval period
temples flourished in Orissa (between 10th and 13th Century), finest of
them being the famous Lingaraja temple in Bhubaneswar. In addition
there are the Jagannath temple at Puri and the Sun temple at
Konarak, built in the 13th Century. Like Khajuraho, evidence of
Tantric worship is seen in Konarak. In the Western India the Chaulukyas
or Solankis of Gujarat built the famous Jain and Hindu temples in
Mount Abu between 11th and13th Centuries. Sculptures made of marble
with its cold lifelessness with extremely decorated ceilings, perhaps
influenced by the Muslim architecture, are the hallmarks of Mt. Abu.
Innumerable temples exist in India and every one of them has its own charm
and pious deity. The most holy ones are not necessarily architectural
masterpieces. Thus the holy temples of Varanasi, Badrinath, and
Gaya do not exhibit any special characteristics in their building
structures. Krishna temple in Udipi, the center of Madhva culture
or the Sringeri temple in Karnataka do not boast of great
buildings that house the deities. Being pantheistic, Hindu religion has
multitudes of recognized godheads. Consequently there are thousands of temples in
India that are considered to be holy with a powerful deity in the sanctum
sanctorum and it is not possible to enumerate them all in this article.
–
Neria Harish Hebbar, MD
March 23, 2003
See also :
Architecture of India
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