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

33
i. Mohenjo-daro
Sumer and Babylon. This technique obviously
implies the existence of vast amounts of timber
to fire the kilns, and reminds us once again that
the province of Sind in these remote times was
heavily forested, and not the arid desert we
know to-day. Certain architectural features,
such as the use of narrow pointed niches as the
only forms of interior decoration along the
Indus, are also found as exterior architectural
accents at Khorsabad in Mesopotamia, and
are suggestive of a relationship with the ancient
Near East. Many examples of vaulting of a
corbelled type have been discovered, but the
true arch was apparently unknown to the builders
of Mohenjo-daro. No buildings have been
discovered at either Mohenjo-daro or Harappa
that can be identified as temples, although at
both sites there were great artificial mounds
presumably serving as citadels. On the highest
tumulus at Mohenjo-daro are the ruins of a
Buddhist stupa that may well have been raised
on the remains of an earlier sanctuary. Among
the more interesting structures at Mohenjodaro
were the remains of a great public bath,
and it is possible that this establishment, together
with the smaller baths attached to almost
every private dwelling, may have been intended
for ritual ablutions such as are performed in the
tanks of the modern Hindu temple.
The regularity of the city plan of Mohenjodaro
and the dimensions of the individual
houses are far superior to the arrangements of
later Indian cities, as, for example, the Greek
and Kushan cities at Taxila in the Punjab.
Indeed it could be said that the population of
the Indus cities lived more comfortably than