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CHAPTER-111 THE SHRINE AND THE TEMPLE: EARLY PHASE (i) Early Traces of the Indian Shrine In India, as elsewhere, the temple is evolved from simple structures, though these as well as intermediate stages cannot always be traced in archaeological sequence or from historical evidence. However, a survey of the various data supplied by the archaeological and literary sources throws some light on the early stages of the Indian temples. (a) The Indus Civilization (c. 3000-2000 B. C.) The buildings discovered at different strata in the excavation at Mohenjo daro may be classified under the following heads : (1) dwelling-houses (2) public baths of relegious or secular character (3) Temples of some kind, and (4) raised platforms, possibly tombs. Now with regards to the existence of temples, private or public, and of emblems or worship, Sir John Marshall assumes some of the massive and well-built structures as temples. He says, "Whether these spacious and elaborate edifices were private houses or not are yet to be determined. Quite conceivably some of them were temples. In Mesopotamia the temples of gods were to all intents and purposes copies of royal palacesdwellings where a god could eat, drink, and make merry like any mortal prince, and even be wedded on occassion to his priestess. It may be, therefore, that the same idea held good at Mohenjo-daro, and that some of these exceptionally large buildings were erected as homes for the gods. In some such buildings the excavators found series of those peculiar ringstones

The Shrine and the Temple : Early Phase 19 which we have good reason for believing were objects of cult worship." With a view to support his this "sheer conjecture "1 Sir John Marshall refers to two buildings which bear all the essential features of a Hindu temple. There is the little building containing two chambers, one much larger structure, which comprises a large central chamber with a corridor on its western and southern sides, a well and two others small chambers at its southern end, and a group of some what larger chambers at northern, the original plan of which is obscured beneath latter accretions. Little, unfortunately, is left of this interesting ruin except its foundations, but these are unusually massive, nearly 10 feet (3 ms.) deep with a solid infilling of crude brick, and presuppose correspondingly high superstructure, which might very well have taken the form of a corbelled Sikhara over the central apartment." One without a preconceived idea, but familiar with the common features of a Hindu temple, would feel no difficulty in identifying the above buildings as ordinary shrines, with a central room where a deity or an emblem is installed, with necessary side rooms and corridors, and finally surmounted with a Sikhara. The Harappau sites have yeilded a number of stray figurines and statues, which appear to represent divine figures, but no buildings which can be definitely identified as temples are discovered so far. (b) The Vedic References. The Vedic literature contains some incidental references to structural abodes of residence or even to particular parts of buildings and associates certain deities (especially like Tavstr) with the sphere of architecture. But they give no indication about the existence of any religious structures in the form of temples. 1. Sir John Marshall. Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilisation Vol. 1. p. 22. 2. Ibid p. 22.

20 The Structural Temples of Gujarat The protohistoric and the early historic periods mark a primitive stage in the history of architecture. It is charactrised by architectural attempts in impermanent materials like earth, stucco, bamboo, and timber. The fire altars (yajna vedis) of this age must have been like simple platforms made of Kusa grass and mud and the yajna sala must be a thatched hut. Dr. Radhakamala Mukerji in his "Social function of Art" traces the evolution of temple construction to the original shape of a hut. He says, "The temple rises skyward like a thatched conical hut of the Indian peasant, but since the temple is the abode of god it is capped by the fruit amalaka, or inverted petals of the lotus flower, or the inverted waterjar." It is clear that the shapes of the structures, originally, were round i. e. at first those of circular plan predominated. At a later date in the evolution of vedic hut the circular plan was elongated into an oval. And during the period of the composition of the Sulva sutras, Taitiriya Samhita, Baudhayana and Apastamba Sutra 5 the vedis took the diverse artistic shapes and forms which ultimately lead us to believe that this sacred ritual edifice (vedi) was the earlier ancestar to all later temples which were perhaps made of bamboo, reads, mats and muds. It is interesting to note that the principal shapes, prescribed for the ground plan of temples in the Canonical literature of architecture figures among those prescribed in the Sulva sutra's for the ground plan of the Yajna Vedi (altar ). Dr. P. K. Acharya also accepts the probability of the beginning of temple building under the circumstances noted above. This was the thatched period of Indian Architecture, 3. Dr. Radha Kumuda Mukerji. "Social Function of Art." p. 320. 4. For details cf: Percy Brown. Indian Architecture ( Buddhist and Hindu period) Ch. I. P. 3. 5. c. 800. B. C. 6. Dr. P. K. Acharya, The cultural Heritage of India pt. II p. 253

The Shrine and the Temple: Early Phase 21 before the wood became common in use of architecture. From the ample references found in vedic literature; it is learnt that wood appears to have been a common material for architecture yet, stone is occassionally referred to.7 (c) The Wood Phase Temples in ancient India are of two types, rock-cut and structural. The earlier structural temples like the rock-cut, were main festly derived from wood-architecture.8 The 'harmonious integration of plastic decoration, one of the most striking features of Indian temple architecture, has its source or derivation in the early wood architecture. That is why, nearly all the canonical texts of vastuvidya have elaborately discussed the qualitative strength and plasticity of various kinds of wood, the most essential material used in architecture. The high workmanship found in the wooden construction leads us to believe that it supplied a considerable contribution in the development of stone masonery. Percy Brown has aptly observed," Owing to the Indian craftman's traditional genius for imitation every detail of this early form of timber construction has been most faithfully reproduced in the numerous and very complete examples of rock architecture which followed, so that although the wooden originals have perished their exact facsimiles remain preserved in the living rock. In no other country has the carpenters and joiners craft as practised over two thousand years ago been so fully and accurately recorded."⁹ (d) Buildings In Brick Buildings in brick were partly conterminous with and succeded the period of wooden construction. 7. Rigveda 4, 3, XX; 'Satam, asmanmayinam puram | also Macdonald and Keith, Vedic Index, pt. 1, pp. 229-231. 8. Alap. 76. 9. lABH p. p. 7.

22 The Structural Temples of Gujarat Besanagar (Vidisa) was the capital of Sungas (c. B. C. 185-c. 70 B. C.). Here was was a Brahmanical shrine of some prominent dedicated to the divinity Vasudeva, and apparently a temple, but only a few fragments of which have survived; and in whose vicinity, a pillar with an inscription (stating that it was a Garuda pillar raised in honour of the god Vasudeva by Heliodorus, son of Dion, a resident of Taxila) was erected approximately in 140 B. C.10