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

. . but
296 THE HINDU RENAISSANCE
•
that lies beneath its eastern approach. One of
Modhera
the most impressive features of the
229. Mount Abu, Tejpal temple, dome
temple and other Gujarat shrines is the entirely
organic plan in the relation of all the parts of the
shrine to the whole and its functional arrangement
of all the architectural accessories of religious
worship. The Surya temple consists of an
open pillared porch connected by a narrow passage
to a building containing an assembly hall
and the garbha griha itself [228]. The seemingly
separate portions of the structure are related by
the horizontal lines of the mouldings that follow
the usual tripartite division of the wall. A similar
division in the proportion and decoration of
the pillars of the interior brings them into unity
with the whole scheme.
The carving typical of the Solanki Period is at
once extremely luxuriant and exquisitely refined
in the rendering of detail. Special attention
should be called to such beautiful ornamental
motifs as the toranas or cusped arches introduced
as tympana to the entrances and also linking
the summits of the columns in the interior of
the porch. Always there is such a depth to the
relief that the effect is almost that of pierced
and applied metal-work rather than stone.
the technique of this extremely delicate carving,
which certainly must have been done by laborious
abrasion rather than direct cutting, the
sculpture at Modhera is not far removed from
the famous carved domes at Mount Abu.
The renowned Jain sanctuaries of Mount
Abu in Rajputana, for generations among the
favourite tourist attractions in all India, are in a
sense the final baroque culmination of the
Gujarat style. These buildings - the Dilwara
shrine of the tenth century and the thirteenthcentury
Tejpal temple [229] - are constructed
entirely of white marble brought up from the
valley below their lofty setting. In their own
ornate way they can be counted among the architectural
wonders or curiosities of the world.
Although the exterior of the temple is in no way
In
distinguished, the interior of the pillared hall
reveals a dome rising in many concentric circles
supported on a circular arcade of dwarf pillars
joined by cusped arches. The dome culminates
in a richly carved pendant, like a stalactite hung
in the centre of the vault. Placed athwart the
lower rings of the dome are brackets with representations
of Jain goddesses of wisdom.
their semi-detached projection they appear like
struts actually upholding the cupola. It is difficult
to give an adequate account of the effect of
this extraordinary decoration. Any real sense of
architectural construction is lost beneath the
intricacy of the carving and the profuseness of
detail. The very texture of the stone is destroyed
by the elaborate fretting. There is, to be sure,
true beauty in the pearly radiance reflected from
what seems like a huge and weightless marble
flower. Looking up at this ceiling is to behold a
dream-like vision looming, in the half-light,
like some marvellous underwater formation in
coral and mother-of-pearl. The deeply pierced
working of the figures and the unbelievably
delicate foliate motifs have the fragility of snowflakes.
Writing of the Mount Abu temples,
Percy Brown observes, 'There remains a sense
of perfection .
In
it is mechanical perfection,
with an over-refinement and concentration on
detail implying the beginning of a decline'. 18 At
the same time this monument ofJainist religious
zeal possesses a complete consistence in that
every portion of each dome, arch, and pillar is
covered with the same exuberance of surface
ornament. 'It is one of those cases where exuberance
is beauty.' 19
A centre of Indo-Aryan building in western
India is the city of Gwalior, on the main railway
between Delhi and Bombay. A little group
of disused and largely ruined temples and fragments
of shrines crowns the plateau of Gwalior