08-13-2008, 03:21 AM
Misconceptions about Indian Architecture
The history and classification of Indian architecture suffers from the stamp given by Fergusson in the 19th century. According to him, anything good and creative is derived from the west (West-Asia) or north (Central-Asia), thus from the outside.
Havell heavily criticized his stereotyped approach, and gives a balanced and realistic view, which most probably would have earned him the title of a Hindu-nationalist supporter. Fortunately, on one hand no one has branded him as such. But on the other he is hardly quoted by anyone when dealing with Indian architecture. Thus, standard works are still according to the Fergusson school of thinking.
In my opinion, in order to appreciate and understand Indian architecture during from 1000 CE on, Havellâs works âIndian architecture, its psychology, structure, and history from the first Muhammadan invasion to the present dayâ (1913) and âA Handbook Of Indian Artâ (1920) are of the utmost importance for a restart. The next fase would be to (re)read the Shilpashastras with this balanced insight of Havell and then appreciating the Rajput structures more fully.
Below are selected quotations of Havellâs first chapter, criticizing Fergusson (and in a sense modern standard works too) and his misconception of Indian architecture, which I couldnât have said better. It gives a good insight into the matter. The rest of the book (and other) can be read at: http://www.archive.org/details/
CRITIQUE OF FERGUSSON
Indian architecture, its psychology, structure, and history from the first Muhammadan invasion to the present day (1913) by E.B. Havell
The history of architecture is not, as Fergusson thought, the classification of buildings in archaeological water-tight compartments according to arbitrary academic ideas of style, but a history of national life and thought. The first duty of an historian of Indian architecture is to realise for himself the distinctive qualities which constitute its Indianness, or its value in the synthesis of Indian life. Fergusson only read into Indian architecture the values he attached to it from his knowledge of Western archaeology, and consequently the only result of his magnificent pioneer work has been to give the subject an honourable place in the Western architect's library among the books which are never read. At the same time Fergusson's authority among archaeologists has been so great that, except on minor points of classification, his views of Indian history have never been seriously disputed ; and the ever-increasing quantity of most valuable material collected by the Archaeological Survey of India year by year is still religiously docketed and labelled according to the scheme laid down by him forty years ago. (preface)
All of these misconceptions have their root in one fixed idea, the belief that true aesthetic feeling has always been wanting in the Hindu mind, and that everything really great in Indian art has been suggested or introduced by foreigners. (chapter 1, p.1)
â¦he treats all of Jahangir's and Shah Jahan's buildings as not being of Indian origin, but as entirely conceived by architects of Western Asia, and suggests Samarkand, rebuilt by Timur (A.D. 1393-1404), as the locality which would throw light on "the style which the Moguls introduced into India."
This persistent habit of looking outside of India for the origins of Indian art must necessarily lead to false conclusions. ⦠but for the vital creative impulse which inspired any period of Indian art, whether it be Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, or Muhammadan, one will only find its source in the traditional Indian culture planted in Indian soil by Aryan philosophy, which reached its highest artistic expression before the Mogul dynasty was established, and influenced the greatest works of the Muhammadan period as much as any others. The Taj, the Moti Masjid at Agra, the Jami' Masjid at Delhi, and the splendid Muhammadan buildings at Bijapur were only made possible by the not less splendid monuments of Hindu architecture at Mudhera, Dabhoi, Khajuraho, Gwalior, and elsewhere, which were built before the Mogul Emperors and their Vice-roys made use of Hindu genius to glorify the faith of Islam. (chapter 1, p.2)
Even the term "Mogul" architecture is misleading, for as a matter of fact there were but few Mogul builders in India. The great majority of the builders employed by the Moguls including not only the humbler artisans but the master-minds which directed them were Indians, or of Indian descent. Some were professed Muhammadans, but many were Hindus. Mogul architecture does not bear witness, as we assume, to the finer aesthetic sense of Arab, Persian, or Western builders, but to the extraordinary synthetical power of the Hindu artistic genius. (chapter 1, p.3)
Practically all Saracenic symbolism in architecture was borrowed directly or indirectly from India, Persia, Byzantium, or Alexandria, though devout Muhammadans put their own reading into the symbols they borrowed, just as the early Christians did with those they borrowed from paganism.
Even the pointed arch only acquired from India the religious significance which eventually led the Saracenic builders to adopt it as their own, through the contact of the Arabs with the Buddhists of Western Asia ; and thus the very feature by which all Western writers have distinguished Saracenic architecture from the indigenous architecture of India was originally Indian. (chapter 1, p.4)
The permanent mosques of the first Arab disciples of the Prophet, like the churches of the early Christians, were in most cases not buildings specially constructed for their own ritual, but those belonging to rival creeds reconsecrated for the worship of Allah. When the Arabs started on their
career of conquest, the first objects of their iconoclastic zeal were the temples and monasteries of the hated idolaters the Buddhists of Western Asia. After smashing the images and breaking as much of their sculptured ornamentation as offended against the injunctions of their law, the buildings with the empty niches the quondam Buddhist shrines remaining in their solid walls were often converted into mosques.
The hallowed associations of generations of Buddhist worshippers still clung to these desecrated shrines, and the doctors of Islam found it necessary to explain them in a Muhammadan sense. Hence the mihrab the niche of the principal image of Buddha came to indicate the direction of the holy city of Mecca; (chapter 1, p.5)
All the forms of the pointed arch which characterise Saracenic buildings in the West are found in the niches of the temples of the various Brahmanical sects in India which inherited the early Buddhist traditions. Remove the images and the sculptured ornament of the niches, and you find the ordinary Arab arch, the stilted arch, the foliated arch, etc. â¦
The contemptuous name which Arabian historians gave to all the temples of the infidel in India Boud-khana, or "Buddha-house" is one of the many proofs of the early connections of Buddhism with Islam. (chapter 1, p.6)
The so-called stalactite pendentive is simply an agglomeration of miniature mihrab niches * geometrically arranged to perform the structural purpose for which it was intended. The pointed domes, pendentives, and other characteristic features of pure Saracenic architecture are therefore not to be derived from any natural motifs, but simply from the application of their religious symbolism to all the ancient constructive forms, Roman, Byzantine, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Buddhist, and Hindu, used by the builders of the many different races and creeds whom the Arabs employed. (chapter 1, p.8)
Buddhist art had spread all over
Western Asia in the previous centuries,- and Buddhist-Hindu art was at its zenith when India received the first shock of the Muhammadan invasions. As the armies of Islam, largely recruited from Tartary and Central Asia, came nearer to the north-west frontier of India, Saracenic art came into closer contact with Buddhist-Hindu civilisation and became more and more impregnated with Indian influences, until at last Arab, Persian, and Central Asian art lost their own individual
identity as creative forces, and merged themselves into different local phases of Indian art of which the aesthetic basis was essentially Hindu, and only Arab, Mogul, and Muslim in a political, ritualistic, and dogmatic sense. (chapter 1, p.10)
The Saracenic art which came into India had likewise been Indianised before it crossed the Indus ; for it was upon the basis of Buddhist-Hindu civilisation that the two earliest styles of Indo-Muhammadan architecture, which Fergusson calls the Ghaznavide and the Pathan, had been built. It was in the Gandhara country that Mahmud of Ghazni and his successors had the centre of their power, and Indian builders were employed in constructing " the palaces and public buildings, mosques, pavilions, reservoirs, aqueducts, and cisterns " with which Mahmud's capital was adorned " be-yond any city in the East." The builders were not the fighting Afghans, but descendants of the peaceful Buddhist builders adapting their art structurally as well as decoratively to the needs of a militant instead of a monastic community, and to the symbolism of a monotheistic creed. â¦
The Arabs, before they came to India as conquerors, had drunk deeply at
many sources of Hindu culture ; and though they detested Hindu sculpture and painting on religious grounds, they had the highest respect for the skill of Indian architects and artists.
Alberuni, the Arab historian who visited India in the beginning of the eleventh century and knowing all the architectural splendour of Baghdad at the height of its glory, before it was laid waste by the Mongols, expressed his astonishment at and admiration for the works of Hindu builders. "Our people," he said, "when they see them, wonder at them and are unable to describe them, much less to construct anything like them." (chapter 1, p.11)
⦠Mahmud of Ghazni, in spite of his detestation of Hindu idolatry, could not refrain from expressing his admiration for Hindu builders. Ferishta tells us that after the sack of Mathura he wrote to the Governor of Ghazni extravagantly extolling the magnificence of the buildings and the city. â¦
When he returned to Ghazni he brought back 5,300 Hindu captives, doubtless the
greater number of them masons and craftsmen, for building the magnificent mosque of marble and granite known by the name of the Celestial Bride, which he caused to be built to commemorate his triumphs. Seeing how great the reputation of Hindu craftsmen was, and since we know that Harun-al-Rashid renewed the ancient intercourse of Mesopotamia with India and had Indian ambassadors at his Court, we may safely assume that Indian builders, artists, and craftsmen were among those of other nations which the great Khalif and his successors employed in the building of Baghdad, just as Timur, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, used them five centuries later in the building of Samarkand. (chapter 1, p.12)
[About Indo-Muslim architecture:]
It is Indian art, not Arab, Persian, or European, that we must study to find whence came the inspiration of the Taj Mahall and great monuments of Bijapur. They are more Indian than St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey are English. (chapter 1, p.13)
The history and classification of Indian architecture suffers from the stamp given by Fergusson in the 19th century. According to him, anything good and creative is derived from the west (West-Asia) or north (Central-Asia), thus from the outside.
Havell heavily criticized his stereotyped approach, and gives a balanced and realistic view, which most probably would have earned him the title of a Hindu-nationalist supporter. Fortunately, on one hand no one has branded him as such. But on the other he is hardly quoted by anyone when dealing with Indian architecture. Thus, standard works are still according to the Fergusson school of thinking.
In my opinion, in order to appreciate and understand Indian architecture during from 1000 CE on, Havellâs works âIndian architecture, its psychology, structure, and history from the first Muhammadan invasion to the present dayâ (1913) and âA Handbook Of Indian Artâ (1920) are of the utmost importance for a restart. The next fase would be to (re)read the Shilpashastras with this balanced insight of Havell and then appreciating the Rajput structures more fully.
Below are selected quotations of Havellâs first chapter, criticizing Fergusson (and in a sense modern standard works too) and his misconception of Indian architecture, which I couldnât have said better. It gives a good insight into the matter. The rest of the book (and other) can be read at: http://www.archive.org/details/
CRITIQUE OF FERGUSSON
Indian architecture, its psychology, structure, and history from the first Muhammadan invasion to the present day (1913) by E.B. Havell
The history of architecture is not, as Fergusson thought, the classification of buildings in archaeological water-tight compartments according to arbitrary academic ideas of style, but a history of national life and thought. The first duty of an historian of Indian architecture is to realise for himself the distinctive qualities which constitute its Indianness, or its value in the synthesis of Indian life. Fergusson only read into Indian architecture the values he attached to it from his knowledge of Western archaeology, and consequently the only result of his magnificent pioneer work has been to give the subject an honourable place in the Western architect's library among the books which are never read. At the same time Fergusson's authority among archaeologists has been so great that, except on minor points of classification, his views of Indian history have never been seriously disputed ; and the ever-increasing quantity of most valuable material collected by the Archaeological Survey of India year by year is still religiously docketed and labelled according to the scheme laid down by him forty years ago. (preface)
All of these misconceptions have their root in one fixed idea, the belief that true aesthetic feeling has always been wanting in the Hindu mind, and that everything really great in Indian art has been suggested or introduced by foreigners. (chapter 1, p.1)
â¦he treats all of Jahangir's and Shah Jahan's buildings as not being of Indian origin, but as entirely conceived by architects of Western Asia, and suggests Samarkand, rebuilt by Timur (A.D. 1393-1404), as the locality which would throw light on "the style which the Moguls introduced into India."
This persistent habit of looking outside of India for the origins of Indian art must necessarily lead to false conclusions. ⦠but for the vital creative impulse which inspired any period of Indian art, whether it be Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, or Muhammadan, one will only find its source in the traditional Indian culture planted in Indian soil by Aryan philosophy, which reached its highest artistic expression before the Mogul dynasty was established, and influenced the greatest works of the Muhammadan period as much as any others. The Taj, the Moti Masjid at Agra, the Jami' Masjid at Delhi, and the splendid Muhammadan buildings at Bijapur were only made possible by the not less splendid monuments of Hindu architecture at Mudhera, Dabhoi, Khajuraho, Gwalior, and elsewhere, which were built before the Mogul Emperors and their Vice-roys made use of Hindu genius to glorify the faith of Islam. (chapter 1, p.2)
Even the term "Mogul" architecture is misleading, for as a matter of fact there were but few Mogul builders in India. The great majority of the builders employed by the Moguls including not only the humbler artisans but the master-minds which directed them were Indians, or of Indian descent. Some were professed Muhammadans, but many were Hindus. Mogul architecture does not bear witness, as we assume, to the finer aesthetic sense of Arab, Persian, or Western builders, but to the extraordinary synthetical power of the Hindu artistic genius. (chapter 1, p.3)
Practically all Saracenic symbolism in architecture was borrowed directly or indirectly from India, Persia, Byzantium, or Alexandria, though devout Muhammadans put their own reading into the symbols they borrowed, just as the early Christians did with those they borrowed from paganism.
Even the pointed arch only acquired from India the religious significance which eventually led the Saracenic builders to adopt it as their own, through the contact of the Arabs with the Buddhists of Western Asia ; and thus the very feature by which all Western writers have distinguished Saracenic architecture from the indigenous architecture of India was originally Indian. (chapter 1, p.4)
The permanent mosques of the first Arab disciples of the Prophet, like the churches of the early Christians, were in most cases not buildings specially constructed for their own ritual, but those belonging to rival creeds reconsecrated for the worship of Allah. When the Arabs started on their
career of conquest, the first objects of their iconoclastic zeal were the temples and monasteries of the hated idolaters the Buddhists of Western Asia. After smashing the images and breaking as much of their sculptured ornamentation as offended against the injunctions of their law, the buildings with the empty niches the quondam Buddhist shrines remaining in their solid walls were often converted into mosques.
The hallowed associations of generations of Buddhist worshippers still clung to these desecrated shrines, and the doctors of Islam found it necessary to explain them in a Muhammadan sense. Hence the mihrab the niche of the principal image of Buddha came to indicate the direction of the holy city of Mecca; (chapter 1, p.5)
All the forms of the pointed arch which characterise Saracenic buildings in the West are found in the niches of the temples of the various Brahmanical sects in India which inherited the early Buddhist traditions. Remove the images and the sculptured ornament of the niches, and you find the ordinary Arab arch, the stilted arch, the foliated arch, etc. â¦
The contemptuous name which Arabian historians gave to all the temples of the infidel in India Boud-khana, or "Buddha-house" is one of the many proofs of the early connections of Buddhism with Islam. (chapter 1, p.6)
The so-called stalactite pendentive is simply an agglomeration of miniature mihrab niches * geometrically arranged to perform the structural purpose for which it was intended. The pointed domes, pendentives, and other characteristic features of pure Saracenic architecture are therefore not to be derived from any natural motifs, but simply from the application of their religious symbolism to all the ancient constructive forms, Roman, Byzantine, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Buddhist, and Hindu, used by the builders of the many different races and creeds whom the Arabs employed. (chapter 1, p.8)
Buddhist art had spread all over
Western Asia in the previous centuries,- and Buddhist-Hindu art was at its zenith when India received the first shock of the Muhammadan invasions. As the armies of Islam, largely recruited from Tartary and Central Asia, came nearer to the north-west frontier of India, Saracenic art came into closer contact with Buddhist-Hindu civilisation and became more and more impregnated with Indian influences, until at last Arab, Persian, and Central Asian art lost their own individual
identity as creative forces, and merged themselves into different local phases of Indian art of which the aesthetic basis was essentially Hindu, and only Arab, Mogul, and Muslim in a political, ritualistic, and dogmatic sense. (chapter 1, p.10)
The Saracenic art which came into India had likewise been Indianised before it crossed the Indus ; for it was upon the basis of Buddhist-Hindu civilisation that the two earliest styles of Indo-Muhammadan architecture, which Fergusson calls the Ghaznavide and the Pathan, had been built. It was in the Gandhara country that Mahmud of Ghazni and his successors had the centre of their power, and Indian builders were employed in constructing " the palaces and public buildings, mosques, pavilions, reservoirs, aqueducts, and cisterns " with which Mahmud's capital was adorned " be-yond any city in the East." The builders were not the fighting Afghans, but descendants of the peaceful Buddhist builders adapting their art structurally as well as decoratively to the needs of a militant instead of a monastic community, and to the symbolism of a monotheistic creed. â¦
The Arabs, before they came to India as conquerors, had drunk deeply at
many sources of Hindu culture ; and though they detested Hindu sculpture and painting on religious grounds, they had the highest respect for the skill of Indian architects and artists.
Alberuni, the Arab historian who visited India in the beginning of the eleventh century and knowing all the architectural splendour of Baghdad at the height of its glory, before it was laid waste by the Mongols, expressed his astonishment at and admiration for the works of Hindu builders. "Our people," he said, "when they see them, wonder at them and are unable to describe them, much less to construct anything like them." (chapter 1, p.11)
⦠Mahmud of Ghazni, in spite of his detestation of Hindu idolatry, could not refrain from expressing his admiration for Hindu builders. Ferishta tells us that after the sack of Mathura he wrote to the Governor of Ghazni extravagantly extolling the magnificence of the buildings and the city. â¦
When he returned to Ghazni he brought back 5,300 Hindu captives, doubtless the
greater number of them masons and craftsmen, for building the magnificent mosque of marble and granite known by the name of the Celestial Bride, which he caused to be built to commemorate his triumphs. Seeing how great the reputation of Hindu craftsmen was, and since we know that Harun-al-Rashid renewed the ancient intercourse of Mesopotamia with India and had Indian ambassadors at his Court, we may safely assume that Indian builders, artists, and craftsmen were among those of other nations which the great Khalif and his successors employed in the building of Baghdad, just as Timur, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, used them five centuries later in the building of Samarkand. (chapter 1, p.12)
[About Indo-Muslim architecture:]
It is Indian art, not Arab, Persian, or European, that we must study to find whence came the inspiration of the Taj Mahall and great monuments of Bijapur. They are more Indian than St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey are English. (chapter 1, p.13)