# A Handbook of Indian Art/Section 1/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII
THE SIVA AND VISHNU-SIVA TEMPLE
In the last chapter we have tried to trace the evolution of the Indian sikhara chapel back to the patriarchal times when the Kshatriya chieftain officiated as high priest at the Aryan tribal sacrifices, and the Kshatriya householder had no need of a Brahman to direct the worship of his lares et penates. We have also seen how the memorial chapel of the dead Aryan chieftain was appropriated to Buddhist worship, and used as the Assembly-hall of the Sangha. It remains now to explain the subsequent evolution of the stūpa shrine in Hindu temple architecture.
Plate XXa
BAS-RELIEF FROM NINEVEH
Plate XXb
STELE OF NARĀN SIN
Plate XXIa
SIVA SHRINE, MĀMALLAPURAM
Plate XXIb
SIVA SHRINE AT SĀNCHĪ
Saiva temples, built of fine masonry, which evidence the growing popularity of the cult, first began to appear in Southern India about the seventh century a.d., by which time Indo-Aryan culture had taken deep root among the Dravidian or non-Aryan races. It is often assumed that Saivism was an aboriginal superstition adopted by the Brahmans in order to strengthen their influence with the ignorant masses, but the architectural evidence does not support this view. Popular Saivism of the present day has certainly identified itself with a great deal of primitive Indian superstitions, but the esoteric teaching of the cult and the form of its architectural expression are both as purely Indo-Aryan as the Vedas themselves. The simplest form in which the Saiva temple first appears, about the sixth century a.d., is shown in the little monolithic Dūrgā shrine ​at Māmallapuram, near Madras, now known as Arjuna's Rath—the war-car of Arjuna.
The stūpa, as the symbol of the Lord of Death, Siva, was venerated by the Saivas as much as it was by the Jains and Buddhists, the only distinction being that the former did not use it as a reliquary, for relic-worship formed no part of Brahman ritual. The chief difference between the Saiva and Buddhist shrine is that the former is square or octagonal in plan—a cubical cell being the usual Brahmanical symbol for the cosmos—while the latter is circular, or wheel-shaped, the equivalent Buddhist symbol.
The fact that the cubical cell was intended either for the spiritual exercises of a living Yogi or for an image of the deity conditioned the size of it, so the builders, in their endeavours to give height and importance to the shrine, were constrained to pile replicas of it one over the other, gradually diminishing in size so as to form a pyramidal structure. In this case it is a three-storied shrine, the topmost crowned by a solid stūpa dome. Miniature cubicles are placed at the four corners of the terraced roofs, with a rectangular cell in the middle of each side intended for an image in a recumbent pose, like the Buddha in his last sleep of Pari-Nirvāna, or for the ascetic dormitory of a living Yogi.
Plate XXII
SIVA TEMPLES, MĀMALLAPURAM
This was, perhaps, the deity whom the Aryans personified as Rudra, "the Roarer," who again was so closely identified with the Siva of Vedic times, the Spirit of the snow-mountain, that eventually the two were worshipped as one. The Sānchī sculpture, therefore, probably shows us a primitive Saiva shrine, the ​protoype of the monolithic shrine at Māmallapuram and of the so-called Dravidian temple.
The stūpa dome at Ajantā, in the structural form of which it is a copy, would have been made on the same principle as modern Persian bulbous domes (Pl. XLI, b), derived from Buddhist stūpas, with internal wooden ties arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Symbolically, the difference between the Saiva and Buddhist dome is that the finial of the former is the kalasha, or jar of immortality, of the latter the reliquary and the royal umbrella. An extension or slight modification of the Saiva principle of design produced the mighty pyramidal shrines of Southern India, which in the mind of the devout stood for Siva's Himālayan paradise, Mount Kailāsa, just as the towering mass of the sikhara type was a symbol of Vishnu's holy mountain. On the seashore at Māmallapuram there are two adjoining temples (Pl. XXII) which illustrate the interchange of symbolism frequently occurring in Indian temple architecture; for though both temples are of Saiva design, the smaller of the two, a five-storied one, is now dedicated to Vishnu. At the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth century a great Vaishnava movement, headed by Rāmanūja, swept over Southern India, and in this period older Saiva temples were appropriated to the Vaishnava cult, and new temples, like the Vaikuntha Perumāl temple at Conjīveram (Kānchī), were built according to the Saiva tradition, but dedicated to Vishnu. In the same way the Vaishnava sikhara temples of Northern India were appropriated by the Saiva cult, as we have already noticed.
Plate XXIIIa
TOWER OF THE GREAT TEMPLE, TANJORE
Plate XXIIIb
GOLDEN LOTUS POOL, MADURA
Saiva temples are mostly "Dravidian," or South Indian, simply because the Saivas are in the great majority in the South, while in the North, where Vaishnavas predominate, the Vaishnava form of temple is the characteristic one.
The geographical distribution of the two main sects of modern Hinduism is in all probability due to the political disturbances caused by the inroads of the Huns and by the Muhammadan conquest. Saivism is and was the especial cult of the Brahmans; Vaishnavism of the Kshatriya or fighting caste. When the Huns, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols carried fire and sword into Northern India, thousands of peaceful Brahman monks and ascetics, whose monasteries were destroyed or desecrated, must have sought refuge south of the Vīndhyas, the mountain range which separates the Dekkan from Northern India. The warlike Kshatriyas remained to fight for the Aryan cause in Aryāvarta. Thus the spires of the Vaishnava temples in Northern India testify to the gallant struggle made by the Kshatriya clans in defence of their holy land, while the lofty pyramids of South Indian temples are witness to the spread of Aryan culture among the Dravidian races.
Saiva or Brahman propaganda began to make headway about the sixth century a.d., when a minister of one of the Pāndyan kings of Madura overthrew the pandits of Hīnayāna Buddhism in the philosophical contests which were the favourite recreation of ​Indo-Aryan courts—the main point of issue being the authority and spiritual significance of the Vedas. Several of his successors popularised Saiva teaching and enlisted many non-Brahmans as disciples, so that, like Buddhism, it divested itself of its Brahmanical exclusiveness. It also found great favour in the royal courts of Southern India. At Bādāmi, the ancient capital of the Chalukyan kingdom, there are several Saiva temples of about the seventh century, small in size, but superb in craftsmanship, and distinguished by a noble simplicity of design, for Saiva teaching aimed at a return to the simple living and high thinking of the Vedic Rishis which inspired it. In the eighth century the Saiva temples became grander and more elaborate, for all the great ruling powers of Southern India were its patrons, and vied with each other in the splendour of their public works. Vikramāditya, the last but one of the Chalukyan line, built the great temple of Virūpāksha at Pattadakal, near Bādāmi; the Pallavas at Conjīveram built the Kaīlāsanatha temple, and sculptured some of the famous Raths at Māmallapuram.
Plate XXIV
KAILĀSA TEMPLE, ELLORA
The Kailāsa temple was commenced by Krishna I, of the Rāshtrakūta dynasty, about a.d. 760 to glorify his Ishta-devata, or patron deity, who had helped him to victory and given him supreme sovereignty over the Dekkan. How long it took to complete this stupendous sculpture history does not record; the main part of it probably occupied most of the two and a half centuries the dynasty lasted, and some of the accessories were added later. Krishna's capital was at Bādāmi so the choice of the Pattadakal temple as a model was a natural one. Technically the Kailāsa temple is almost unique among the great rock-cut monuments of India, for instead of making a horizontal excavation into a hill-side, as was the case at Ajantā, or carving detached masses of rock as at Māmallapuram, Krishna's master-masons cut down into the sloping hill-side from above, quarrying a pit varying in depth from 160 feet to about 50 feet, and leaving in the middle of it a detached mass of rock from which they sculptured a full-sized double-storied temple—solid at the base, but with the first floor completed internally and externally—its vimāna, or shrine, 96 feet in height, and the assembly-hall about 53 feet square, with sixteen sculptured pillars arranged in groups of four to support ​the solid mass of the roof. The three sides of the deep pit which formed the temple courtyard were subsequently carved into pillared cloisters, which provided a richly sculptured procession path, and a series of splendid chapels, from whose dimly-lit recesses Siva's snow-white palace could be seen glittering in the sunlight, for the sculpture, as usual, was finished with a fine coat of highly polished chunam.
Passing through the gopuram, with its walls battlemented like the entrance of a royal palace (Pl. XXIV), one passes over a bridge to a detached two-storied shrine dedicated to Siva's bull, Nandi, and placed at the entrance to the main courtyard. On either side a stately carved monolith, nearly 50 feet high, serving as the ensign of royalty, bears Siva's trident, the symbol of his threefold qualities, on the summit.
Plate XXVa
SIVA AND PARVATI, KAILĀSA
Plate XXVb
SIVA AS SUN-GOD, KAILĀSA
The Nandi shrine is connected by another bridge with the front porch of the main temple through which the worshipper can pass through the great assembly-hall and circumambulate the holy of holies, where Siva's symbol, the Lingam, is enshrined, passing by the five smaller shrines grouped round it on the terrace. They are now empty, but the first on the north side belonged to Ganēsha, the god of reason and worldly reason, who must always be first invoked before the Divine Spirit is addressed. Next, at the north-east corner, was the shrine of Bhairava, or Rudra—Siva in his tamasic aspect as the Universal Destroyer. The third, immediately behind the holy of holies, was dedicated to Parvati, Siva's sakti, or nature-force, personified by Himālaya's fair daughter who once in spring-time, when the snows melt and the mountain side begins to blossom, drew by her prayers the Great God from meditation in His icy cell and became His bride.
The fourth cell belonged to Chanda, the scavenging deity, who purifies the foulness caused by the processes of involution, and thereby prepares the way for another turn of the wheel of life. Lastly came the shrine of the Sapta-Mātris, the seven Mothers, or Powers, of Creation.
The pyramidal tower of the central shrine, as will be seen in Pl. XXVI, is similar in design to the five-storied temple on the sea-shore at Māmallapuram (Pl. XXII), but more elaborately sculptured. The roof of the antarāla, the vestibule before the shrine reserved for the priests, rises above the terraced roof of the assembly-hall, and, as is usually the case with the sikhara type of temple also, its gable is filled by a ​large sun-window, originally intended to illuminate the shrine, but here filled by an image of Siva seated in yogi attitude with the right hand raised in the gesture of teaching. This is one of the many points in which Saiva and Buddhist iconography correspond.
From the level of the inner courtyard the solid plinth upon which the temple rests can be seen (Pl. XXVII, a). It is about 27 feet high, and sculptured with a whole herd of elephants, as if supporting the temple on their backs, showing the characteristics of the noble beasts with consummate art and with an amazing effect of monumental dignity. It goes round the whole length of the main temple with its assembly-hall, only interrupted by the porches on the north, south, and west sides, which at the ground level are filled with sculpture illustrating legends from Saiva mythology. Under the southern porch, which was formerly connected with the chapel on the opposite side of the courtyard, there is a fine panel (Pl. XXVII) telling the story from the Rāmāyana of Rāvana's impious attempt to remove Kailāsa to Ceylon. Worsted in the fight with Rāma and his monkey allies, Rāvana flew in his magic car to Kailāsa, and in order to force the Great God to come to his aid, began to undermine the mountain, hoping to carry it off on his back. Parvati felt the ground tremble, and her attendants fled in dismay. She clutched Siva's arm to rouse him from his meditation; but He who knows the past, present, and future, only pressed down His foot and held the ten-armed demon-king a prisoner in the dungeon he had made for himself, where he remained a thousand years until he had expiated his crime by repentance.
Plate XXVI
TRANSVERSE SECTION, KAILĀSA PTEMLE, ELLORA
Plate XXVIIa
SCULPTURED PLINTH, KAILĀSA TEMPLE
Plate XXVIIb
LANKĒSHVARA CHAPEL, KAILĀSA TEMPLE, ELLORA
The great bathing-tank, which is a striking feature in many other popular Indian shrines (see Pl. XXIII, b), is wanting at Ellora, because the pilgrims performed their necessary ablutions at the water-fall or in the stream which flows at the foot of the hill.
Probably this marvellous temple remained the chief centre of Saiva worship in the Dekhan until the thirteenth century, when the Muhammadans, having conquered the greater part of Hindustan, broke through the great barrier of the Vīndhya mountains and forced the Brahman monks and temple craftsmen to seek the protection of the Hindu courts farther south. But the design of the Kailāsa at Ellora remained for all time the perfect model of a Sivālaya—the temple craftsman's vision of Siva's wondrous palace in His Himālayan glacier, which no mortal can ever reach, where in His Yogi's cell the Lord of the Universe, the Great Magician, controls the cosmic forces by the power of thought; the holy rivers, creating life in the world below, enshrined in His matted locks; Parvati, His other Self—the Universal Mother, watching by His side.
Plate XXVIIIa
GOPURAM, SRIVILLIPUTTUR, TINNEVELLY
Plate XXVIIIb
GOPURAM, GANDIKOTA, CUDDAPAH
These cities of the gods in Southern India are especially interesting, because, like the sacred cities of ​the Jains before described, they reproduce in their scheme the main features of the ancient Aryan town-plan as described in the canonical books of the Indian craftsman, the Silpa-Sāstras. The inner temple represents the king's palace and council-house approached by the two main thoroughfares, the Rājapatha, or King's street, and the Vāmanapatha, Short or South street. The bazaars, bathing places, debating-halls, public orchards, city walls and gates are all indicated in the lay-out of the great South Indian temples, each one of which should have a separate monograph.
When the distinction in symbolism between the typical Saiva and Vaishnava temples is understood, it will not be difficult to follow the evolution of the architecture of the two great cults of modern Hinduism, for the study of which a great mass of material is available. We must now briefly consider a third architectural group which, after Fergusson, has been classified archæologically as Chalukyan, because its geographical distribution approximately corresponds to the territories of the Chalukyan kings who ruled in the Dekhan from about the seventh to the end of the twelfth centuries a.d. This name is unsatisfactory, because the style did not begin with the Chalukyan dynasty, nor was it exclusively characteristic of the temples built under its patronage. Fergusson states that the Chalukyan style was naturally evolved from the Dravidian, i.e. the orthodox Saiva, type of temple. But this is hardly correct, as the design of the temples included in this category was a compromise between the "Dravidian" pyramidal stūpa-tower of the Saiva type, and the "Indo-Aryan" curvilinear sikhara of the Vaishnava type.
Plate XXIX
VISHNU-SIVA TEMPLE, ITTAGI
The other characteristics of the style specified by Fergusson are mere variations in technique dictated ​by local craft conditions or by the inventive fancy of the builder.
Though this form of a temple shrine probably originated with the Vaishnava movement in the Dekhan, it did not, once it was established in the canons of the master-builder, retain a strictly sectarian character. Like the other two types, it was used by different sects—a characteristic of Indian temple-building which has often led to disputes regarding ownership. And though Rāmanūja's name may be associated with it, just as Sankarāchārya's name is connected with the Saiva movement, the "Chalukyan style" began to evolve several centuries before Rāmanūja's appearance in the eleventh century, for the Vaishnava doctrine of qualified monism, preached by Rāmanūja in opposition to the Advāita doctrine of the Vedanta, had its exponents centuries before his birth.
The Saiva temple of Ittagi (Pl. XXIX), about twenty-one miles E.N.E. from Gadag in Hyderabad, built about the time of Rāmanūja, and typical of the style, is one of the most beautiful examples of mediæval architecture in the Dekhan. The decorative work is superbly rich and finished in execution, but it is not over-elaborated with the wild profusion of the later decadent architecture of Halebīd. Like many other temples of the period, it is remarkable for the absence of figure sculpture, the niches designed for images being mostly empty or filled with aniconic symbols. In this respect also the temples tell the religious history of the times, for many Hindu teachers—Jain, Saiva, and Vaishnava—taught the vanity of idolatry, and refused it the place in religious ritual which popular superstition gave to it.
Plate XXXa
VISHNU-SIVA TEMPLE, BALAGĀMĪ
Plate XXXb
VISHNU-SIVA TEMPLE, GADAG
The name of one of the master-builders of the Hoysala court, Jakanāchārya, has been recorded, and many of the Mysore temples have been attributed to him. Followers of Fergusson, like Dr. Vincent Smith, now distinguish a Hoysala Ballāla style as a sub-variety of the "Chalukyan"; but this dynastic system of temple classification which takes no account of the religious character of the building must always be unsatisfactory, if not misleading, to the student of Indian art history, for it leaves untold all that the temple craftsmen have revealed of their craft-ritual and of the spiritual impulses of the times.
* ↑ Even at the present day Brahmans serving in temples are regarded as an inferior caste.
* ↑ Derived from the ancient idea that the world was square, the sky being supported on four pillars.
* ↑ If the shrine were Brahmanical, it would be for the analogous figure of Vishnu, as Nārāyana, slumbering under the cosmic waters in the coils of the great serpent, Ananta, a symbol for the Milky Way.
* ↑ See The Beginnings of Buddhist Art, by A. Foucher. English translation by L. A. Thomas and F. W. Thomas, p. 97.
* ↑ Rig-Veda, I, lxvi. 5.
* ↑ See History of Aryan Rule in India, by the Author (Harrap), p.218.
* ↑ It is now within the dominions of H.H. the Nizam of Hyderabad.
* ↑ Literally "cow fort," a name no doubt derived from the gateways of the ancient Aryan village, where armed sentinels watched the cattle on the common grazing-ground under the walls.
* ↑ The three gunas—sattvam, rajas, and tamas.
* ↑ See Pl. LX, b.
* ↑ Dharma-chakra-mudra.
* ↑ See Pl. XXVII, on the left.
* ↑ See Pl. XXVII, on the right.