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History
Language and Architecture of Ancient India
by Neria Harish Hebbar, MD
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.
March 23, 2003
Images under license with Gettyimages.com
See also : Architecture of India
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