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

3l6 THE HINDU RENAISSANCE
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This building is one hundred and eighty feet
long and has a tower rising one hundred and
ninety feet in the air. The elevation comprises
a pyramidal structure rising from a square base
about fifty feet high and surmounted by a domical
finial. The top of this spire is covered by a
single stone weighing eighty tons. A ramp four
miles in length was required for its installation.
Far more important than these dimensions
testifying to the colossal nature of the achievement
and the labour that went into its making is
the actual aesthetic effectiveness of the monument.
The steep tower is not only enormously
impressive, rising above the empty sea of courtyards
around it,
but extremely beautiful in its
proportion. The width of the apex is one-third
that of the base. The form of the tower is that
of the Dravidian sikhara, but the horizontal
dividing lines of its thirteen storeys have been
suppressed so as not to interfere with the effect
of soaring vertically achieved by the converging
lines of the truncated pyramid in profile. The
massiveness of this pyramid and its composition
in straight lines is offset by the curvature and
lightness of the dome. This member is now
octagonal and topped by the usual Dravidian
stupika. Attached to it at the points corresponding
to the sloping faces of the tower are chaitya
arch-shaped 'horns', composed of an ornament
formed of nagas and a terminal ktrtimukha or
demon-mask, a shape that is rhythmically repeated
many times in the ornamentation of both
the tower and the base that supports it.
Like so many temples of the Hindu Renaissance,
this structure proves upon close inspection
to consist of the repetition ofmany identical
elements, comparable to the cells in a biological
organism. We notice here, for example, the
reiteration of the shape of the terminal cupola
in lesser replicas at the corners of all the thirteen
storeys. Between these on every level of the
terrace are aedicules with hull-shaped roofs,
clearly reminiscent of this form at Mamallapuram.
Indeed, not only in such details but in
the employment of the roll cornice, on the basement
storey and on every successive level of the
superstructure, it is not difficult to discern the
survival of elements of Pallava origin.
The decoration of the basement, divided into
two levels, consists of deep-set niches filled with
free-standing figures of deities, an arrangement
that again has its origin in the raths at Mamallapuram
; and, under the lowest row of niches, is a
frieze of unfinished busts of lions, and beneath
this a wide band of masonry given over to an
inscription of Rajaraja's campaigns.
It should be noted that the plan of the Rajrajesvara
temple, consisting of the garbha griha
under the central spire preceded by a pillared
mandapa, is only an enormous enlargement of
the very simplest form of Indian sanctuary. The
wonderful balance between architectural mass
and verticality, together with the subordination
of enormous detail to the complete form, makes
this temple at Tanjore perhaps the finest single
creation of the Dravidian Hindu craftsman in
architecture. As we shall see in later chapters,
the importance ofthe Chola style in architecture,
from its plans to its smallest details, is not
limited to the actual domains of the Chola emperors,
but was to exert a powerful influence on
all the architecture of south-eastern Asia.
The stone sculpture of these Chola temples is
typical of the creative vitality of this last great
period of South Indian civilization. Although
parts of a vast iconographic scheme, the images
on the temple fa£ades are still worthy of analysis
as individual works of art. The main themes
are, of course, the various manifestations of
the great gods of the Hindu pantheon. As on the
gateway of the Great Temple at Tanjore, we
find the gods set in niches, framed in engaged
columns that repeat the order of the Rajrajesvara
temple. The individual figures, like the
doorkeeper in our illustration 248, are characteristically
Dravidian in the suggestion of dynamic
movement and the massive conception of
the form. The iconography of this most dramatic