Essay name: Arts in the Puranas (study)
Author:
Meena Devadatta Jeste
Affiliation: Savitribai Phule Pune University / Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Pune
This essay studies the Arts in the Puranas by reconstructing the theory of six major fine arts—Music, Dance, Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and Literature—from the Major and Minor Puranas. This thesis shows how ancient sages studied these arts within the context of cultural traditions of ancient India.
Chapter 3 - Architecture in the Puranas
3 (of 62)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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(sālās) in the houses in consequence among the
people. +3
This account in the Puranas is supported by the
historicians. The first stage in the pre-historic culture is
the Palaeolithic age. In this age man was primarily
cave-dweller, a nomad and a hunter. And in the second
Neolithic stage man settled in huts and villages, and was
partly pastoral and partly agricultural.
The Vedic culture of India shows the first efforts at
building constructions, when man's efforts were made in
response to a need. Indra in the Rgveda is often described as
destroying a hundred of 'Puras' of the Dasyus and hence he is
referred to as 'Purandara'. These Dasyus or Asuras of the
Vedas are identified with the ancient Mohenjo-daro people.
Consequently, we can assume that the Indus-valley civilization
was probably destroyed by the migrating Indo-Aryans who settled
in North India by about 2000 B.C. It is now admitted by
scholars that the Indus Valley civilization is the first
civilization known in India, which declined probably some time
early in the second millenium B.C. If we admit that the Indus
Valley inhabitants were the original inhabitants in India and
their civilization was destroyed by the emigrant Vedic Aryans,
it will be clear that before the Vedic times there was in India
the existence of the works of Architecture in some form or the
other.
The archaeological finds at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro,
