ESSAY ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS

The introduction to the European public of this rare and valuable book by a Hindu would seem to mark an epoch not only in the history of the science but also in that of the Hindus themselves. Their palaces, their temples, the stupendous pyramidal gateways leading to the latter, the colonnades and porticoes with which they are surrounded; some of “a thousand pillars,” others equally remarkable for their elevations, richness, and grandeur of design, have for ages been the objects of admiration to the traveller in the East; and, though it had long been known, proverbially, that the Hindus possessed treatises on architecture of a very ancient date, prescribing the rules by which these edifices were constructed, it remained for the author of this essay to overcome the many, and almost insurmountable obstacles to the substantiation of the fact, and to the communication of it to the European world in a well-known language of Europe. As of most other sciences among the Hindus, the rules and precepts of architecture and sculpture had been, with some solitary exceptions, locked up in the Sanscrit language; and, as the study of this language was limited, in general, to the higher classes; the only means of improvement left to the artist, who in all cases would be of a subordinate class, were the verbal instructions delivered to him by these superiors, when they might happen to require his assistance; together with the impress on his mind resulting from practical experience. The author compares Hindu architecture with the Greek, Egyptian, or later European architecture that is helpful in understanding sources of design, particularly of temple architecture. Forty-eight plates illustrate the different parts of the temple, and show in detail the decorative and iconographic ornament.