period. As such, they must be reckoned among the most valuable survivals of the classic times. IV. Dravidian Architecture Not many monuments exist in the Tamil country as evidences of early architecture and sculpture. One can only argue from existing monuments of the Pallava period that they are developments and reproductions in stone of earlier monuments which were of wood or of brick. T. R. SESHA IYENGAR, in Dravidian India, Madras, 1925, pages 120 to 123, argues that the early Dravidians were advanced in the art of architecture. SOUTH INDIA CANNOT show buildings of unquestionable antiquity. Nevertheless, South India might have possessed them in the hoary past, and their disappearance might have been due to the perishable nature of the materials used and the destructive power of a hot, damp climate and superabundant insect life. According to Dr. Slater,1 the earliest extant temples of the South show their indebtedness to a more ancient architectural art and tradition. They display the utmost elaboration of ornament. "This must have been worked up slowly through centuries by workers in more manageable materials, so that the earliest builders of temples and palaces of stone, instead of first experimenting in simple forms and gradually adding ornament to ornament, attempted from the beginning a height of elaboration never reached elsewhere in material of the same character." The result as in the Madurā Temple is vastly impressive. There is nothing in North India, says Dr. Slater, equal to the sumptuous greatness and elaboration of the magnificent South Indian temples. Certainly, it may be easily conceded that the remains of Dravidian architecture existing in the South at the present day are more extensive, more elaborate, and more impressive than those of the Aryans in the North. The magnificent Stupa of Amarāvatī and the marvellous rock-cut temples at Mahābaḷipūr may have been produced in later ages under Brahmanical or Buddhist influence, but they are a natural development of strictly indigenous art. According to Sir John Marshall, the Aryans were much indebted to the pre-Aryan inhabitants of India in the domain of art. It is in the South of India, in the Amarāvati sculptures, that we find the richest, most rhythmical, and most imaginative designs. It is here again we find the wonderful ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1Dravidian Element in Indian Culture-Dr. Slater, pp. 66-68. |