Chapter - Review:
- Monuments provide an insight into the technologies used for construction.
- Between the seventh and tenth centuries, architects started adding more rooms, doors and windows to buildings.
- Roofs, doors and windows were made by placing a horizontal beam across two vertical columns, a style of architecture called ‘trabeate’ or ‘corbelled’.
- Two technological and stylistic developments from the twelfth century are ‘arcuate architectural’ form and use of limestone mixed with stone chips that led to faster construction.
- Assimilation of Indian style with Persian style of architecture was prominent.
- Temples and mosques were beautifully constructed because they were places of worship and meant to demonstrate the power, wealth and devotion of the patron.
- The largest temples were all constructed by kings. The other, lesser deities in the temples were gods and goddesses of the allies and subordinates of the ruler.
- Muslim Sultans and Padshahs did not claim to be incarnations of God but Persian court chronicles described the Sultan as the ‘Shadow of God’.
- As each new dynasty came to power, kings wanted to emphasise their moral right to be rulers.
- It was widely believed that the rule of a just king would be an age of plenty when the heavens would not withhold rain.
- Since kings built temples to demonstrate their devotion to God and their power and wealth, they attacked and targeted these buildings when they attacked one another’s kingdoms.
- In the early 11th century, when the Chola king Rajendra I built a Shiva temple in his capital he filled it with prized statues seized from defeated rulers.
- Under the Mughals, architecture became more complex. Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan were personally interested in literature, art and architecture.
- Babur got gardens called Chahar Bagh (four gardens) built in Kabul. They were further constructed in Kashmir, Agra and Delhi by Akbar, Jehangir and Shah Jahan.
- Akbar’s architecture is visible in his father, Humayun’s tomb.
- Under Shah Jahan, Mughal architecture was fused together in a grand harmonious synthesis.
- The ceremonial halls of the public and private audience (diwan-i-Khas; diwan-i-am) were carefully planned.
- Shah Jahan adapted the Chahar Bagh technique in the layout of the Taj Mahal, the grandest architectural accomplishment of his reign.
- As construction activity increased between the eighth and eighteenth centuries, there was also a considerable sharing of ideas across regions.
- In Vijayanagar, for example, the elephant stables of the rulers were strongly influenced by the style of architecture found in the adjoining Sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda.
- In Vrindavan, near Mathura, temples were constructed in architectural styles that were very similar to the Mughal palaces in Fatehpur Sikri.
- The creation of large empires that brought different regions under their rule helped in this cross¬fertilisation of artistic forms and architectural styles.
- The Mughals adopted the ‘Bangla dome’ in their architecture.
