Indian Architecture and Sculpture

Architecture is the design and construction of buildings, a discipline of engineering, accurate measurement and a mix of materials such as stone, wood, glass and metal. Sculpture is something different: a smaller three-dimensional work of art, usually carved from a single material, where creativity matters more than precise measurement. The Taj Mahal is architecture. The Dancing Girl and the image of Nataraja are sculpture.

The story of Indian art is one of long, continuous evolution. From the Harappan cities to British New Delhi, every building and image carries a narrative. It tells of the rise and fall of empires, the arrival of foreign rulers who slowly became Indian, and the meeting of many cultures and styles. A few broad phases recur in what follows:

• Harappan: the earliest planned cities and their seals, bronzes and pottery.
• Mauryan and post-Mauryan: stupas, pillars, rock-cut caves and the first schools of sculpture.
• Gupta and after: the golden age of temple architecture and cave painting.
• Medieval (Indo-Islamic): arches, domes and the Mughal climax.
• Colonial and modern: European styles and their fusion with Indian forms.

A few dated landmarks make this sequence concrete, and "which was made earliest" questions turn on exactly this order. The rock-cut elephant at Dhauli in Odisha, carved in the 3rd century BCE beside Ashoka's edicts, is among the earliest rock sculptures in India and belongs to the Mauryan phase. The Varaha relief at Udayagiri came in the Gupta age. The monuments at Mahabalipuram followed in the 7th century under the Pallavas, and the Lingaraja Temple at Bhubaneswar rose in the 11th century.

A flourishing urban civilisation arose on the banks of the Indus in the second half of the third millennium BCE. Known as the Harappan or Indus Valley civilisation, its towns are among the earliest and finest examples of civic planning anywhere.

Key features of Harappan town planning were:

• Grid layout: towns were laid out in a rectangular grid. Roads ran north-south and east-west, cutting each other at right angles and dividing the city into blocks.
• Two-part city: an upraised citadel in the west (granaries, administrative buildings, pillared halls, residences of rulers) and a lower town of one-roomed working-class houses.
• Standardised burnt bricks: well-baked mud bricks of fixed dimensions, joined with gypsum mortar.
• Advanced drainage: covered drains ran from each house into larger drains beside the main roads, with cesspits at regular intervals, reflecting an obsession with hygiene.
• Public baths: used for ritual cleansing. The most famous is the watertight Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro.
• No grand temples or palaces: unlike Egypt or Mesopotamia, the Indus cities had no large monumental temples or royal palaces.

Some important sites and their finds:

• Harappa (Pakistan, on the Ravi): rows of granaries, a red sandstone male torso, evidence of wheat and barley.
• Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan, on the Indus): the citadel, the Great Bath, the Great Granary, the bronze Dancing Girl, the bearded priest, and the Pashupati seal.
• Dholavira (Gujarat): a giant water reservoir, water-harnessing system, stadium and a 10-sign signboard inscription.
• Lothal (Gujarat): the famous dockyard, marking it as a naval-trade centre, along with fire altars and a terracotta ship.
• Rakhigarhi (Haryana): the largest site of the civilisation.
• Kalibangan (Rajasthan): fire altars and a ploughed field.

The Harappans were also master sculptors. They made steatite seals: square, with undeciphered pictographic script and animal motifs, but never a cow. They cast bronze figures using the lost-wax (cire perdue) technique. The four-inch Dancing Girl, posed in a tribhanga posture, is the world's oldest bronze sculpture. They also shaped terracotta mother-goddess figures and toys.

The Hindu temple, with a square sanctum and a pillared portico, emerged during the Gupta period (4th century CE onward). This period is often called the golden age of Indian architecture. Temples evolved through five stages: from flat-roofed shrines, to raised platforms with a covered circumambulatory path, to the appearance of the curved shikhara and the Panchayatan plan (a main shrine with four subsidiary shrines).

The basic Hindu temple has these parts:

• Garbhagriha: the "womb-house", a small sanctum sanctorum housing the principal deity.
• Mandapa: the entrance hall or portico for worshippers.
• Shikhara / Vimana: the mountain-like spire over the sanctum.
• Vahana: the mount of the deity, placed before the sanctum.

Three great styles developed in different regions:

• Nagara (North India): temples on raised platforms, usually following the Panchayatan plan, with a curving (latina / rekha-prasada) shikhara topped by an amalaka disc and a kalash pot. River goddesses Ganga and Yamuna flank the entrance. There are usually no boundary walls or water tanks. Its sub-schools are:
  • Odisha school: lavishly carved exterior walls, the shikhara called a rekha-deul and the hall a jagmohan. Examples: Konark Sun Temple (the "Black Pagoda"), Jagannath Temple at Puri, Lingaraja Temple at Bhubaneswar, and the smaller Rajarani Temple at Bhubaneswar. Konark is built as a colossal stone chariot of the Sun god, riding on giant, intricately carved stone wheels. This chariot-wheel motif inspired the wheel logo of Indian Airlines.
  • Khajuraho (Chandela) school: in Madhya Pradesh, with both interior and exterior walls richly carved, often with erotic themes drawn from the Kamasutra, made of sandstone. Examples: Kandariya Mahadeva and Lakshmana temples.
  • Solanki (Maru-Gurjara) school: plain temple walls, decorative torans, and a unique stepped tank (surya-kund). Example: Modhera Sun Temple, Gujarat (built 1026-27 by Bhima I).
• Dravida (South India): temples enclosed by high boundary walls with a towering entrance gopuram. The spire is a stepped pyramidal vimana crowned by an octagonal shikhara. A water tank sits inside the enclosure. The style began under the Pallavas (Mahendravarman, the rock-cut Pancha Rathas and Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram, a UNESCO site) and reached its peak under the Cholas. Examples: Brihadeswara Temple at Tanjore (Raja Raja I, 1011 CE) and Gangaikondacholapuram. Later southern styles include:
  • Nayaka (Madurai) school: huge corridors (prakarams) and the tallest gopurams. The Meenakshi Temple, Madurai has among the world's tallest gopurams.
  • Vijayanagara school: gopurams on all sides, monolithic pillars carved with the mythical yali, and the kalyan mandap. Examples at Hampi: the Vittala Temple, Lotus Mahal and Virupaksha Temple.
• Vesara (Karnataka): a hybrid that blends Nagara and Dravida features (curvilinear shikhara plus Dravidian carvings and vimana). It was developed by the later Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and Hoysalas. The Hoysala school is distinctive: a star-shaped (stellate) plan, soft soapstone, dense sculpture and a raised jagati platform. Examples: Hoysaleswara Temple at Halebid (dedicated to Shiva), Chennakesava Temple at Belur.

Matching questions reward a fixed set of temple-state and temple-deity pairs:

• Somnath Temple, Veraval (Gujarat): the first of the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva. The 11th-century scholar Al-Biruni described its fame and wealth. Destroyed and rebuilt many times, the present temple was reconsecrated after independence. Its Pran Pratishtha was performed by President Rajendra Prasad, not by Radhakrishnan, the usual trap.
• Chausath Yogini Temple, Morena (Madhya Pradesh): a circular temple of the Kachchhapaghata dynasty, dedicated to the sixty-four Yoginis of the Shakti cult. It is popularly believed to have inspired the design of the old Indian Parliament building. It is not the only circular temple in India; other Yogini temples share the plan.
• Vidyashankara Temple, Sringeri (Karnataka): a temple of the famous matha town on the Tunga, blending northern and southern features.
• Rajarani Temple, Bhubaneswar (Odisha): the ornate sandstone temple of the Odisha school noted above.
• Bhimeswara Temple, Draksharama (Andhra Pradesh): a celebrated Shiva temple of the Godavari delta.

On Sun temples, three names matter beyond Konark and Modhera. Arasavalli in Andhra Pradesh holds the famous Suryanarayana (Sun) temple. By contrast, Amarakantak and Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh are Shiva-associated sites (Omkareshwar is itself a Jyotirlinga), not Sun temples.

• Palitana (Gujarat): a vast complex of Jain temples on Shatrunjaya Hill near Bhavnagar, among the holiest Jain pilgrimage clusters.
• Gomateshwara, Sravanabelagola (Karnataka): the colossal monolithic statue depicts Bahubali, the son of the first Tirthankara Rishabhadeva. Bahubali was not himself a Tirthankara; statements calling him one are wrong.
• Matching questions often pair these shrines with Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh, the largest Buddhist monastery in India.

Rock-cut cave architecture began under the Mauryas. Caves were cut as viharas (living quarters) for Jain, Buddhist and Ajivika monks, and given a high mirror polish. The Barabar and Nagarjuni caves in Bihar date to this period. The Barabar caves are the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India. Ashoka dedicated them to the Ajivika monks. Crediting them to Chandragupta Maurya is a standard trap.

In the post-Mauryan age two cave types developed:

• Vihara: a residential hall for monks.
• Chaitya: a quadrangular prayer hall, often with a flat roof and stone screen walls. Examples: the Karle Chaitya and the Bhaja caves, both Buddhist cave shrines in Maharashtra.

The art reached its height in the Gupta age, when mural painting was added to the caves:

• Ajanta Caves (Maharashtra): 29 rock-cut caves (25 viharas + 4 chaityas) on the Waghora river near Aurangabad. They were made between c. 200 BCE and 650 CE under Vakataka patronage (king Harishena). The paintings use the fresco technique. They are themed on the life of Buddha and the Jataka tales, and are notable for the absence of blue. Famous works: Dying Princess, Flying Apsara, and the Bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani.
• Ellora Caves (Maharashtra): 34 caves (Buddhist 1-12, Hindu 13-29, Jain 30-34), made between the 5th and 11th centuries. The masterpiece is Cave 16, the Kailasa Temple, dedicated to Shiva. It was carved from a single monolith under the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I.
• Other sites: the Udayagiri caves at Vidisha (Chandragupta II, famous Varaha sculpture), the Bagh caves (Madhya Pradesh), and the Nasik (Pandavleni) caves. The Bagh caves hold the only other surviving Gupta-period cave paintings besides Ajanta; the Nasik caves carry no such paintings. Note: these are distinct from the Jain Udayagiri-Khandagiri caves in Odisha. Those were cut under King Kharavela and carry the Hathigumpha inscription.

A few cave, sculpture and mural pairings recur in matching questions:

• Bhaja (Maharashtra): an early Buddhist cave shrine with a fine chaitya hall.
• Sittanavasal (Tamil Nadu): a Jain cave shrine, also celebrated for its murals.
• Besnagar (near Vidisha): known not for any Shaivite cave shrine but for the Heliodorus pillar, a Vaishnavite Garuda pillar raised by a Greek ambassador.
• Arjuna's Penance at Mamallapuram (Tamil Nadu): also called the Descent of the Ganga, a vast open-air relief carved by the Pallavas across the face of a single huge boulder.
• Mahaparinirvana Buddha at Ajanta: a grand image of the reclining Buddha at his final passing, carved in Cave 26.
• Lepakshi (Andhra Pradesh): famed for Vijayanagara-period mural paintings in its Veerabhadra temple. Keep the contrast in mind: Sanchi is famous for sculpture, not for murals.

A stupa is a burial mound. It is a conventional representation of a funeral cumulus in which relics and ashes of the dead were kept. Though a Vedic tradition, it was popularised by Buddhism. The art peaked under Ashoka, who is said to have raised some 84,000 stupas.

The parts of a stupa include:

• Medhi: the raised drum or terrace.
• Toran: the ornamental gateway (introduced as decorated gateways by the Shunga dynasty).
• Pradakshina patha: the circumambulatory passage walked by devotees as worship.

Examples include the Sanchi Stupa (Madhya Pradesh), the most famous Ashokan stupa, the Piprahwa stupa (Uttar Pradesh), the oldest, and the Bharhut stupa.

Buddhist building under the Mauryas was part of imperial court art, which also produced:

• Ashokan pillars: monolithic shafts of polished Chunar sandstone, about 40 ft high, topped by a lotus or bell-shaped capital and an animal abacus. The Iranian (Achaemenid) influence shows in the lustrous polish. But unlike Achaemenid pillars (made of joined pieces, attached to buildings), the Ashokan shafts are single-stone and free-standing.
• The Sarnath capital: its four lions and abacus (galloping horse, bull, elephant, lion, crowned by the Dharma Chakra) form India's National Emblem, inscribed Satyameva Jayate from the Mundaka Upanishad.
• Ashokan edicts: 33 inscriptions on pillars, rocks and cave walls (269-232 BCE), mostly in Prakrit and Brahmi script. The Maski edict was the first to name "Ashoka" instead of Devanampiya. The major rock edicts stand at fixed sites worth memorising: Dhauli and Jaugada in Odisha, Erragudi in Andhra Pradesh and Kalsi in Uttarakhand. The Kalinga edicts at Dhauli and Jaugada are conciliatory in tone.

In the Gupta age stupa-building declined, though the Dhamek stupa at Sarnath is a fine late example.

Buddhist building never stopped in the Himalayan belt, and monastery-state pairs are a favourite test. Fix this map:

• Tabo, Kye and Dhankar (Himachal Pradesh): the great monasteries of the Spiti Valley. Tabo, founded in 996 CE, is so rich in murals that it is called the "Ajanta of the Himalayas".
• Alchi and Lhotsava Lhakhang (Ladakh): Alchi is renowned for its early wall paintings on the Indus.
• Rumtek (Sikkim): the seat of the Karmapa, near Gangtok.
• Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh): the largest Buddhist monastery in India. Pairing Kye with Arunachal Pradesh, or Tabo with any state but Himachal, is the standard mismatch trap.

After the Arab conquest of Sind (712 CE), Islamic rulers established a throne in Delhi by the 12th century. A new style then emerged: a confluence of Persian and Indian forms known as Indo-Islamic or Indo-Saracenic architecture.

Its hallmark features were:

• Arches and domes (the arcuade style) replacing the post-and-lintel trabeate style.
• Minars around mosques and mausoleums, and mortar as a cementing agent.
• No human or animal figures. Decoration was by calligraphy and arabesque (geometric vegetal patterns).
• Jaali lattice screens, intricate geometry and symmetry.
• The Charbagh garden (a square split into four identical gardens) and pietra-dura inlay of precious stones.

During the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526) the imperial style ran through several dynasties:

• Slave (Mameluke) dynasty: the Qutub Minar (begun by Qutb-ud-din Aibak) and the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque.
• Khilji dynasty: red sandstone and the Alai Darwaza.
• Tughlaq dynasty: austere grey sandstone, sloping "batter" walls and fortress cities like Tughlaqabad.
• Lodi dynasty: tombs with the new double dome, and the Lodi Gardens.

Provincial schools flourished too: Bengal (brick and "Bangla" sloping roofs), Malwa/Mandu (Jahaz Mahal, Rani Roopmati pavilion), Jaunpur (Sharqi style, Atala Mosque) and Bijapur (the bulbous-domed Gol Gumbaz).

Mughal architecture then reached its climax:

• Akbar: red sandstone and the Tudor arch. Notable works include Agra Fort and the planned city of Fatehpur Sikri (the Buland Darwaza, the world's largest gateway, and Salim Chishti's tomb).
• Jahangir: the shift to white marble. The tomb of Itmad-ud-daulah (Agra) is the first Mughal building wholly of marble, with fine pietra-dura.
• Shah Jahan: the Taj Mahal (for Mumtaz Mahal), the Red Fort and Jama Masjid in Delhi, and Shahjahanabad.
• Aurangzeb: a period of decline. The Bibi-ka-Maqbara at Aurangabad is a lesser imitation of the Taj.

Two allied styles grew up alongside the Mughals. The Sikh style featured fluted domes and chhatris; its finest example is the Golden Temple, Amritsar, completed by Arjan Dev in 1604. The Rajput style produced palaces and forts with hanging balconies; its famous example is the Hawa Mahal, Jaipur.

European colonists brought their own building traditions, which fused with Indian forms.

• Portuguese: the Iberian and Baroque styles, with patio houses and fortified coastal towns. Examples in Goa: Sé Cathedral and the Basilica of Bom Jesus (a UNESCO site holding the body of St Francis Xavier).
• French: scientific urban planning on Cartesian grids and "anonymous" plain-faced architecture in Pondicherry and Chandernagore. Example: the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Puducherry.
• British: first the Indo-Gothic (Victorian) style, a blend of Indian, Persian and Gothic forms using steel, iron and concrete (Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, Gateway of India, Mumbai). Then, after 1911, came the Neo-Roman / Neo-classical New Delhi designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, with upturned domes on the Rashtrapati Bhavan and Supreme Court.

After independence, two schools emerged: Revivalist and Modernist. The Punjab government hired the French architect Le Corbusier to design Chandigarh. Two notable Indian architects:

• Laurie Baker: the "Architect of the Poor", who revolutionised low-cost mass housing in Kerala with locally sourced materials and filler-slab construction.
• Charles Correa: a master of urban architecture and spatial planning. His works include the Madhya Pradesh Assembly and the Gandhi Memorial Museum, Ahmedabad.

Beyond the royal court art of pillars and stupas, the Mauryan age produced popular sculpture. The most famous are the Yaksha and Yakshi figures. These are nature deities worshipped across Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The earliest mention of the yakshi appears in the Tamil text Silappadikaram.

In the post-Mauryan period three great schools of sculpture arose in three regions:

• Gandhara school: developed near Peshawar and Afghanistan. It was deeply shaped by Greek and Roman art, so it is also called the Greco-Indian / Indo-Greek school. Early work used bluish-grey sandstone, later mud and stucco. The Buddha is shown spiritual and serene, with wavy hair, few ornaments and a head protuberance signifying omniscience. Patronised by the Kushanas.
• Mathura school: flourished on the Yamuna, developed indigenously, and drew on all three religions. It used spotted red sandstone and modelled the Buddha on earlier Yaksha images. He is shown in a delighted mood with a shaven face and a halo decorated with geometric patterns. Also patronised by the Kushanas. Kankali Tila was famous for Jain sculpture.
• Amaravati school: grew on the Krishna river under the Satavahanas, using white marble. Unlike the other schools, which focused on single images, it emphasised dynamic narrative art depicting the life of Buddha and the Jataka tales. It made heavy use of the tribhanga (three-bend) posture.

The Buddha image is often read through its hand gestures, or mudras: for example, Bhumisparsha (calling the earth to witness, the moment of enlightenment), Dhyana (meditation), Dharmachakra (the first sermon at Sarnath) and Abhaya (fearlessness).

A later Gupta school around Sarnath used cream-coloured sandstone, draped its figures fully, and richly decorated the Buddha's halo. The Sultanganj Buddha is a famous example. Under the Cholas, bronze sculpture peaked with the Nataraja in the Tandava dance. Shiva holds the damru (creation) and fire (destruction), raises an abhaya hand of reassurance, and dances on the dwarf of ignorance, ringed by a nimbus symbolising the cycles of time.

Indian building styles travelled far beyond the subcontinent, and they did so without conquest. Traders sailing to Indonesia and Cambodia from the 1st century BCE in search of gold carried their gods, scripts and customs. Monks carried Buddhism abroad, most famously when Emperor Ashoka sent his son Mahendra and daughter Sanghamitra to Sri Lanka. The Indian science of building, known as Sthapatya-Shastra, moved along these trade and pilgrim routes.

The spread began at India's north-western edge. Under Ashoka, parts of Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Seistan lay within the Mauryan empire and received Buddhist stupas. The Gandhara school, blending Indian, Greek and Kushana styles, reached as far as Balkh on the River Oxus. The colossal Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan, carved into the hillside in the 1st century under the Kushana emperor Kanishka, belong to this current. They were later destroyed by the Taliban.

In Southeast Asia whole kingdoms became Indianised. Champa (in Annam, modern Vietnam) and Kambuja (Cambodia) were ruled by Hindu kings of Indian origin. Government followed Hindu polity, with Brahmins in the highest offices, and Sanskrit remained Cambodia's language of administration until the 14th century. The Cham people of Vietnam built Hindu temples to Shiva, Ganesha, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati.

The great Indian-style monuments abroad:

• Angkor Wat, Cambodia: the world's largest Hindu temple, conceived as Vaikunthadhama, the abode of Vishnu. The wider Angkor group was built between 800 and 1300 CE by the Khmer rulers. Suryavarman II built the central temple in the early 12th century. Its style is closely related to Chola architecture, and its walls carry scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
• Baphuon, Cambodia: an 11th-century Indian-style temple at Yashodharapura. Its walls depict the battle of Rama and Ravana, and Shiva with Parvati on Mount Kailasha.
• Borobudur, Java (Indonesia): the world's largest Buddhist monument, a 9th-century stepped stupa-mountain raised by the Sailendra dynasty, now a UNESCO site.
• Prambanan, Java (Indonesia): the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia and a UNESCO site, dedicated to the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva). It was built in the 9th century by the Shiva-worshipping Sanjaya kings of the Mataram kingdom and holds about 240 shrines.
• Pashupatinath, Nepal: a Shiva temple in the Nepalese Pagoda style on the Bagmati river, with a four-faced Shivalinga in a cubical two-tiered sanctum.
• Shwezigon Pagoda, Myanmar: built by King Anawrahta (Aniruddha), who adopted Indian temple architecture and raised about a thousand temples. His capital Pagan was a great centre of Buddhist culture from the 11th to the 13th centuries.
• Dong Duong Buddha, Vietnam: a 108-metre image that closely resembles the Amaravati sculptures. Its curly hair signals an Indian origin in a land of straight-haired people.

The influence ran west as well as east. The stupa's egg-shaped dome, the anda, is echoed in the domes of mosques across the Islamic world and in Byzantine buildings such as the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. China cut Indian-style rock-cave complexes at Dunhuang, Yungang and Longmen.

Pottery is among the oldest and most continuous of Indian crafts, and a useful marker for dating early cultures.

• Harappan pottery: mostly fine wheel-made ware. The painted variety is called Red-and-Black pottery: a red background with glossy black designs of trees, birds, animals and geometric patterns. Plain pottery stored grain and water. Tiny miniature vessels were decorative. Perforated pots (a large bottom hole and small side holes) were probably used for straining liquor.
• Mauryan pottery: the luxury Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW), marked by a black paint and a high lustrous finish, often called the highest level of early Indian pottery.

Everything in this topic rests on archaeology: the scientific excavation and study of material remains. In India the discipline took shape under colonial rule. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was founded in 1861, with Alexander Cunningham as its first head. Today the ASI is an attached office of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of India. It excavates sites, protects centrally listed monuments and maintains site museums.

A group of British scholar-officials carried out the pioneering archaeological excavations of the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially in South India. Remember them as one set: Alexander Rea (excavated the Iron Age urn burials at Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu), A.H. Longhurst (worked on the Buddhist remains of Nagarjunakonda), Robert Sewell (surveyed southern antiquities and wrote on the ruins of Vijayanagara), James Burgess (headed the ASI and founded the journal Indian Antiquary) and Walter Elliot (explored the Amaravati stupa sculptures). They were diggers and documenters of ancient sites, not builders of railways, presses or churches.

Examiners often test whether a site sits in the right state with the right description. Fix these pairings:

• Chandraketugarh: West Bengal, an ancient trading port town in the Ganga delta. Placing it in Odisha is the standard trap.
• Inamgaon: Maharashtra, a major Chalcolithic (copper-stone age) farming settlement on the Ghod river.
• Mangadu: Kerala, a megalithic site known for burial monuments of the Iron Age.
• Salihundam: Andhra Pradesh, a Buddhist stupa and monastery complex on the Vamsadhara river. It is not a rock-cut cave shrine site.
• Sisupalgarh: Odisha, a fortified early historic city near Bhubaneswar with massive defensive walls.
• Piprahwa: Uttar Pradesh, the site of the oldest stupa and a relic casket linked to the Buddha.
• Goalpara: Assam, on the Brahmaputra, known for its ancient remains and rock images.
• Bishnupur: Manipur, noted for the early brick Vishnu temple. Take care: a different Bishnupur in West Bengal is famous for the terracotta temples of the Malla kings.