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

CHAPTER 23
THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF BURMA
Although for most Europeans the idea of art in
Burma conjures up a vision of elaborately
carved wooden palaces and gilded pagodas,
as a suitable background for Kipling's Road
to Mandalay, the classical period of artistic
achievement must be sought in a far earlier
epoch of the history of the region. The history
of Burmese art may be roughly divided into
three periods. The first extends from the second
to the eighth or ninth centuries a.d. This is followed
by a classical, or truly Burmese, period
from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. After
the disastrous invasions of Kublai Khan and the
Siamese in the thirteenth century, Burmese art
in its last period, completely severed from its
connexions with Buddhist and Hindu India,
assumed the character of a folk art, typified at
once by exuberance and poverty of expression.
The original races of Burma in the first millennium
B.C. comprised the Pyus of Central
Asian origin, who had settled in the North, and
the Talaings of Mon-Khmer stock, settled in
the South. This division continued until the
eighth century, when the Talaings conquered
the northern provinces and established a new
capital at Pagan. Indian colonies in Burma certainly
existed as early as the first century a.d.,
and Buddhism was firmly established by the
fifth century, with the country divided between
Mahayanist centres in the North and Hinayana
Buddhism flourishing in the South. 1
The earliest surviving monuments of architecture
date from the tenth century. Perhaps the
first shrine is the Nat Hlaung Gyaung at Pagan,
a temple traditionally dated in 931 and one of
the few Hindu monuments in the history of
Burmese architecture. Even this structure has
certain characteristics of Burmese architecture
of all periods. 2 The construction is of solid
brick-work with mortar as a binding medium,
and only a sparing use of stone. It is square
in plan, with enormously thick walls. Above
the basement storey the building ascends by
terraces marked by string courses to a conical
superstructure that is suggestive more of terminal
members of Singhalese stupas than any
monuments in India proper. Other temples of
this early period at Pagan, such as the Ngakye
Nadaun of the tenth century, recall the form of
Gupta stupas, such as the Dhamekh stupa at
Sarnath. 3
The most distinctive Burmese structures
date from the period of unification under King
Anawrata of Pagan and his successors, a period
when no fewer than five thousand pagodas were
erected in the capital. The buildings may be
roughly divided between stupas and temples
that in varying degrees represent a Burmese
assimilation and re-working of many familiar
foreign elements.
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The most typical example is the Mingalazedi
stupa of a.d.
1274 [372]. The monument consists
of three stepped terraces surmounted by a
stupa consisting of a circular basement, likewise
arranged in terraces or rings, and a drum
supporting a tapering finial. This shape, which
is suggestive of the terminal stupa of Barabudur,
is echoed in smaller replicas at the four corners
of the uppermost terrace. Smaller members,
shaped like the Indian kalasa, are located on the
corners of the terraces of the basement. Characteristic
of the Burmese stupas are the stairways
at the four points of the compass, giving access
to the upper portions of the monument. Perhaps