The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

ROMANO-INDIAN
200
•
ART
must have risen to a height of one hundred feet
above the ground. The remains of a Buddhist
chaitya have also been discovered there. This
temple, erected on a square double platform,
consisted apparently of a cella of massive proportions
which, originally, was probably only a
larger version of the small Kashmir temples of a
later period. The construction at Parihasapura
is
characterized by the literally gigantic size of
the blocks of ashlar masonry employed. These
great stones were apparently joined together by
gypsum mortar and iron
dowels. The largest
stone of all was the great block, fourteen by
twelve feet, that formed the floor of the
Buddhist temple.
Another phase of the classical architecture of
Kashmir is represented by the Brahmanical
buildings dating from the eighth to the
thirteenth century a.d. Of these structures the
most impressive is certainly the sun-temple at
Martand, which appears to have served as a
model for all later Brahmanical shrines [ 1 39 and
140]. The great beauty of the setting on a high
plateau framed by distant mountains contributes
enormously to the impressiveness of the
temple. The central shrine is again placed in the
middle of a rectangular court with a surrounding
cellular peristyle two hundred and twenty
by one hundred and forty-two feet in dimensions.
It was built by King Lalitaditya in the
middle of the eighth century a.d. The temple
differs from other examples in Kashmir in the
addition of a portico to the central building for
the accommodation of special rites in conjunction
with the worship of the sun. Between the
portico and the garbha griha or cella is another
small chamber corresponding to the pronaos of
a Greek temple. The shrine was originally
covered by a pyramidal roof, and attained a
height of close to seventy-five feet. The massive
decoration of its exterior contains elements
specially typical of the architecture of Kashmir.