| |
| Home » History of Indian Architecture |
| |
History of Indian Architecture |
|
|
Indian architecture embraces a wide variety of historically and geographically spread structures, that were transformed by the long history of the total South Asian subcontinent. The consequence is a developing range of architectural productions. The History of Indian Architecture shows a wide array of architectural structures and constructions. But the difficulty with Indian architecture is that it can not be identified with any single representative style. Nonetheless, it maintains certain amount of continuity across history.
|
The diversity of Indian culture is also reflected in its architecture. Indian architecture is composed of a blend of ancient and various other aboriginal traditions.The building types, forms and technologies from West, Europe and Central Asia are all reflected in Indian architecture. The History of Indian Architecture also bears testimony to the different influences that the culture of this subcontinent came across.
Studies of the History of Indian Architecture begin with the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation that flourished in modern Pakistan and in the western region of present India. The architecture Indus Valley civilization is folllowed by the architecture of the late Vedic period, the Maurya-Gupta age, the Buddhist monuments, monasteries and Indian rock-cut architecture. This is again followed by the great temple and building era of the medieval Turk and Afghan rulers. These Turks and Afgan rulers brought with them West Asian traditions of the arch, vault and dome.The rise of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century led to a sophisticated synthesis of Indian regional elements of architecture with the ideas from Persia and West Asia.
This synthesis has an everlasting influence in the History of Indian Architecture. This style was adopted across the subcontinent, even by post-Mughal rulers and what is recognised today as Mughal architecture. The subsequent European colonization of India paved the way for the entry of styles from that continent, including Neo-Classical, Baroque, Mannerist and Neo-Gothic styles. This styles were followed in the by the hybrid Indo-European style in the late 19th century called the Indo-Saracenic. The reference of Hindu temples in literature goes back to 5th century B.C. in the texts by Panini and Patanjali.
With increasing architectural differentiation, the southern Dravida and the northern Nagara styles were differentiated. Both these styles emerged as dominant modes of temple architecture in the History of Indian Architecture. These two architectural structures differ mainly in the shape of the roofing structure. The southern Dravida has a stepped pyramid structure while the latter has a curved profile. This difference is epitomised in the productions of the magnificent Thanjavur, the Sun Temple of Konark and the Brihadeeswara Temple.
Buddhist elements and themes continued to influence Hindu temple's architecture to a considerable extent even to this day. Besides, the dominant Dravida and Nagara style there arose a number of varied regional styles of temples in places like Bengal, Kerala and Kashmir.
|
|
