Exploring Society II · Chapter 3 — A Journey Through Indian Architecture

Look around your school building. Someone decided where the doors go, how thick the walls are, how rain will drain off the roof and how the classrooms stay cool. That planning, joined with an eye for beauty, is architecture: the art and technique of designing and building, which combines what is useful (function) with what is beautiful (aesthetics). India has excelled at it for thousands of years.

How this chapter travels. We cannot see everything, so we visit a few examples in each of several families of buildings: cities, stupas, rock-cut caves, water structures, temples, mosques, tombs, forts and palaces, houses, churches and colonial buildings. Keep asking three questions at each stop: what was it for, what is it made of, and what ideas does it express?

The earliest planned cities. The Harappan (Indus–Sarasvati) civilisation gives us the earliest known tradition of town planning in the subcontinent. Its cities show:

• Careful layout: wide streets and narrow lanes, roughly lined up with the four directions.
• Water and drainage: almost every house in Mohenjo-daro had a bathing area, and used water left the city through an efficient network of drains.
• Standard materials: most cities stood on alluvial plains where clay was plentiful, so they were built of brick.

A Harappan house. The plan of a large house in Mohenjo-daro suggests that servants lived on the ground floor while the owners lived upstairs, away from the dust and noise of the street. Rooms were arranged around open space, an idea we will meet again in later Indian houses.

Dholavira, a city of stone. In the Rann of Kachchh, Dholavira was planned with separate fortified areas, streets and large reservoirs. Unlike most Harappan cities, it used a lot of stone, because stone was available locally. At the entrance to its highest, most protected part, called the 'Castle', you can still see smooth stone blocks, a large guard room where people were checked, and pieces of a polished stone pillar.

The lesson. From the very beginning, Indian builders chose materials from their surroundings and planned for water. These two habits, using local materials and managing water, run through the whole chapter.

Imagine walking slowly around a huge, smooth dome while carved stone gateways tell stories around you. That is what visiting a great stupa was like.

What a stupa is. From about the 4th or 3rd century BCE, with the rise of Buddhism, a new form spread across north India and then further: the stupa, a dome-shaped structure that holds relics of the Buddha or of revered monks. Thousands were built of brick or stone. The larger ones became ritual centres with railings, gateways and carved panels telling episodes of the Buddha's life. Stupas are also found in Jainism.

The Buddha without a human figure. In this early stage, the Buddha was not shown as a person. Artists used symbols instead: his footprints, the wheel of dharma, or the stupa itself.

Sanchi. The main stupa at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, first commissioned or supported by Ashoka, belongs to the earliest phase of large religious buildings in stone in India. Its parts are easy to read:

Walking around. A worshipper entered through a toraṇa and circumambulated, that is, walked around the stupa inside the railing. Walking around a sacred centre in a clockwise direction, called pradakṣhiṇā, became a lasting custom in Indian sacred architecture, and you will meet it again in rock-cut caves and temples.

Bharhut. Also in Madhya Pradesh, a carved panel at Bharhut actually shows people worshipping a stupa. The Bharhut stupa was surrounded by richly carved railings with many inscriptions naming the donors, so ordinary people as well as kings helped pay for it.

Spreading far. Stupas of many sizes and shapes spread across India and beyond, for example to Borobudur in Indonesia.

Instead of building a hall from blocks, what if you carved it out of a mountain? Rock-cut architecture does exactly that. Builders cut directly into a rock face to make caves for worship, living or meeting. Such caves were strong and long-lasting, and many complexes grew over centuries.

Udayagiri–Khandagiri. Near Bhubaneswar in Odisha, carving began in the 2nd century BCE under royal patronage. These are among India's earliest rock-cut caves; most were homes for Jain monks. One cave carries the famous inscription of King Khāravela.

Ajanta and Ellora. Maharashtra has some of the world's grandest cave complexes. At Ellora, many thousands of tonnes of rock were chipped away to leave the gigantic single-rock Kailāśha Temple, along with Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves. Cave no. 10 is enormous: a large seated Buddha in a teaching pose leans against a stupa. The arched ceiling copies the shape of wooden beams used in buildings of the time, even though it is solid rock. Monks walked around the stupa in the aisle, the corridor outside the row of pillars, continuing the custom of pradakṣhiṇā.

Think like a carver. With only hammers and iron chisels, carvers had to plan from the top down, since rock removed cannot be put back. One mistake could ruin years of work.

A few more sacred sites.

What these show. Sacred architecture in India took many forms, from caves to wooden hill shrines to marble gurudwaras. Each fitted its landscape and its community, and many were also centres of learning and gathering, not just worship.

In much of India it rains heavily for a few months and hardly at all for the rest of the year. So people have always needed ways to catch, store and share water. Over thousands of years this produced a huge variety of water structures, from a simple village pond to the great Grand Anicut, each suited to its region, whether Himalayan foothills, the Thar Desert, the Gangetic plains or the Deccan.

Harappan engineering. Dholavira had large reservoirs. Harappan builders also invented wells that would not cave in. They used trapezoid-shaped bricks (wider at one end) laid in a ring. Pressed by the soil and water outside, the bricks locked tighter together, like the stones of an arch, instead of falling inwards.

Shringaverpur. In Uttar Pradesh, at the place the Rāmāyaṇa calls Śhringaverapura, excavations found a chain of large connected reservoirs fed by a channel from the Ganga when the river flooded. The first one or two tanks let the silt settle, so cleaner water passed on. Exactly how the whole system worked is still being studied.

Stepwells. In Gujarat and Rajasthan a tradition of stepwells (vāvs or bāorīs) developed: wells reached by long flights of steps going down to the water, whose level rose and fell with the seasons. Rani ki Vav in Gujarat has several pillared levels and hundreds of fine sculptures. Stepwells stored rainwater and were also social spaces where people sat together in the cool and exchanged news.

Temple tanks. Many temples had a tank, or puṣhkariṇī, used both for harvesting water and for rituals. The one at Vijayanagara has many stairways built into its sides, so people could reach the water at any level.

Under threat. Many old water structures now suffer from falling water levels, poor upkeep, pollution and dumped waste. Local people, environmentalists and NGOs sometimes work together to revive them, but much remains to be done.

Temples grew out of the stupa and the rock-cut cave. Whether Buddhist, Jain or Hindu, they were places of worship and also of learning, art (sculpture, dance, music, painting), social life and even economic activity. Classical temples appeared in the Gupta era, often paid for by kings and by many donors, and were built following śhilpaśhāstra, texts on arts and crafts that deal mainly with architecture and sculpture.

The parts of a temple.

Most temples are aligned east–west, with the garbhagṛiha facing east.

The temple as a body. A temple was planned as the body of Puruṣha, the cosmic being: the top of the tower is the head and the platform is the feet. Worship becomes a journey from the busy outer world, through gate and halls, to the quiet inner chamber, mirroring an inner spiritual journey.

From small to vast. Until about the 8th or 9th century temples were modest. From the 10th century they grew into large complexes with many shrines and enclosures.

• Bṛihadīśhvara Temple, Thanjavur: built by Rājarāja Chola I around 1010; a pyramid-shaped vimāna over 60 metres high and a huge Nandi carved from a single stone.
• Lingarāja Temple, Bhubaneswar: early 11th century; three large maṇḍapas; built of local sandstone and laterite with rich carving.
• Dilwara Temples, Mount Abu: five Jain temples of white marble (11th to 13th centuries), with carving on every surface.
• Bishnupur, West Bengal: 17th- and 18th-century brick temples covered with terracotta panels, carved by hand and then fired, showing Rādhā, Kṛiṣhṇa, Rāma and daily life.

Skill and mathematics. None of these use cement. Building them needed architects, engineers, sculptors and a great deal of geometry, as did great sacred buildings elsewhere, such as Egypt's pyramids or Europe's Gothic cathedrals.

A mosque is where followers of Islam gather to pray. It is also used for religious education, community meetings and talks. Every mosque has a prayer hall facing towards Mecca, the most sacred site of Islam, in Saudi Arabia. A niche in the wall called the mihrab shows that direction. Larger mosques often have domes, and minarets (towers) from which the muezzin calls people to prayer.

Jama Masjid. Friday prayers are especially important, and large mosques where they are held are often called Jama Masjid: jama means 'gathering' and masjid means 'mosque'.

The Jama Masjid, Ahmedabad (15th century). Built by Sultan Ahmed Shah I in yellow sandstone, it mixes Hindu and Islamic elements. Its front has graceful arches and the bases of two minarets; their upper parts fell in earthquakes and are known from an 1809 sketch. Inside, the pillars resemble temple pillars, though without figures, and there are fine stone jālis (latticed screens). Such details suggest local Hindu and Jain masons and carvers helped build it. The famous Sidi Saiyyed jāli in Ahmedabad shows how stone can be carved like lace.

Indo-Islamic architecture. This style blends Islamic building traditions with Indian craftsmanship. Its features include domes, arches (both pointed and corbelled, that is, built by stacking blocks in steps), jālis and floral designs. In Rajasthan, local features such as jharokhās (overhanging balconies) and chhatrīs (small domed pavilions) were added.

The Jama Masjid, Delhi (mid-17th century). India's largest mosque was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan after he moved his capital from Agra to Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi).

Its walls and arches carry calligraphy, decorative writing of verses from the Qur'an.

Why the blend matters. Indo-Islamic buildings show how artisans of different traditions worked side by side and produced something new that belongs to India.

Different faiths treat the dead differently, and this shapes architecture. In Islam and Christianity the dead are buried. In Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism they are generally cremated, so there are no ancient tombs of Indian rulers of these faiths. In the medieval period cenotaphs appeared, especially in Rajasthan and central India; they mark the place of cremation and are not tombs, because no one is buried there.

Mausoleums. In the Islamic world, grand buildings housing one or more tombs, called mausoleums, were built for rulers, royal family members and famous mystics. They were also political statements, showing off the greatness of a dynasty. Their design followed strict symmetry, which extended to the gardens around them. Common features included arches, floral designs, latticework and Qur'anic calligraphy.

Humayun's Tomb, Delhi. It was commissioned in 1558 by Humayun's chief wife, Bega Begum, and designed by Persian architects, who brought Persian ideas into the Mughal tradition. Several Mughals are buried in the complex, including Dara Shikoh. Look closely and you will see a six-pointed star on it. This shape appears in many traditions: in Judaism it is the Star of David, in Islam the Seal of Solomon, and in Hindu tantric symbolism it stands for the union of consciousness (the upward triangle) and energy or matter (the downward triangle).

The Taj Mahal, Agra. In the mid-17th century Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his queen, Mumtaz Mahal. Faced entirely in white marble, it brings together three cultures:

Its walls show delicate inlay work: craftsmen set coloured semi-precious stones into the marble to make flowers. The marble seems to change colour as the sunlight shifts. Mumtaz's tomb lies at the centre and Shah Jahan's beside it.

Protecting the Taj. In the 1970s, smoke from local industries burning coal and other fuels began to leave a yellowish tinge on the marble. After an expert committee's advice and a public interest case in the Supreme Court, industrial pollution near the monument was banned in the mid-1990s. Heritage, too, needs laws and citizens to protect it.

Forts protected kingdoms from attack. They were placed near important land or sea routes, often on a hilltop that looked over the plains below. Inside lived rulers and soldiers, and in large forts even a whole town. Many forts also held a royal palace, so we look at forts and palaces together.

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur. Begun in the mid-15th century and enlarged by Rajput rulers for about two centuries, it is built of huge blocks of local red sandstone. Inside are palaces with separate quarters for men and women, rooms for staff, stables and barracks. Balconies are framed with stone latticework, which lets air through while giving privacy. Much of it is now a museum. Near it stands Jaswant Thada, a memorial to Maharaja Jaswant Singh II built by his son; it is a cenotaph, not a tomb. Jodhpur's old houses are painted blue with lime mixed with copper sulphate, said to keep termites away; thick walls, courtyards, jālis and narrow winding streets keep them cool.

The Red Fort, Agra. (Not the Red Fort of Delhi.) It was a ruined brick fort when Akbar rebuilt it as his capital, with palaces, gardens, halls for public and private audiences and quarters for servants. Its red sandstone came from Dholpur in Rajasthan, about 60 km away. Shah Jahan, who loved marble, replaced many buildings with marble palaces, decorated with inlaid flowers; he was later kept prisoner by his son Aurangzeb in one of them, the Musamman Burj, which looks towards the Taj Mahal. Many buildings were destroyed by East India Company troops in the 19th century. Natural air-conditioning: Persian wheels lifted Yamuna water into tanks on the walls; it then flowed through terracotta pipes to fountains that cooled the air.

Orchha, Madhya Pradesh. Built in the mid-16th century by Bundela Rajput kings on the Betwa river, it has three main palaces, including the Jahangir Mahal, made for Emperor Jahangir's visit and blending Rajput and Mughal styles. Chhatrīs line the riverbank.

Mysuru Palace. Also called Amba Vilas, the home of the Wadiyar dynasty was rebuilt early in the 20th century after the old wooden palace burned down. It is famous for carved wooden doors, painted ceilings, stained glass, the golden throne shown at Dasara and nearly 100,000 lights switched on every Sunday evening and on festivals.

Courtyard houses. Traditional homes in India vary as much as its landscapes, but many richer homes, in towns and villages, share one plan: rooms arranged around a central courtyard, on one or more floors. Some archaeologists see this plan already in larger Harappan houses some 4,500 years ago. A courtyard gives privacy from the street, light and air to every room, a place to catch rain, and a cool, shaded space for family work and gatherings.

• Havelis of Shekhawati (Rajasthan): mansions of nobles and rich merchants, with central courtyards, arches and painted frescoes. Many are now hotels or museums, as they are hard to maintain.
• Chettinadu houses (Tamil Nadu): built by merchants who traded rice, spices and gems with South-East Asia, using teak from Burma and marble from Italy, with craftsmen from all over India. Suited to the hot climate, their courtyards were used for rituals, gatherings and sun-drying pāpads and chillies.

Churches in India. Some Christian communities have lived in India for many centuries; by tradition, the first churches were built on the Kerala coast. Some churches copy European styles, such as the Gothic St. Philomena's Cathedral in Mysuru (Gothic: a European style with pointed arches and tall stained-glass windows). Others, especially in Kerala, use local traditions: the St. Thomas Orthodox church at Mulanthuruthy has a flag post in front, borrowed from temples, and the Kalloopara church has a sloping tiled roof and wooden ceiling typical of Kerala.

Colonial architecture. Under the British Raj, from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, a style called Indo-Saracenic blended Islamic, Hindu and Gothic features: domes, pointed arches, minarets and Mughal and Rajput decoration. Examples include the Madras High Court (completed 1892), the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata and the Mysuru Palace.

Protecting heritage. India has thousands of remarkable monuments, and many lesser-known ones are neglected. Government bodies are responsible for them, but much will be lost unless citizens also care. The Constitution's Fundamental Duties ask every citizen 'to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture'. You can help by visiting respectfully, never scratching or littering, learning the history of a local monument and telling others about it.