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| Mahabalipuram |
India. One word for chaos, madness and miseries of all kinds brought about by sheer variety and numbers. 2nd most populous country with the largest number of officially recognized languages, communities, religions……..the list seems endless.
To top it all, democracy (or shall we call it democrazy!!)! In the classical Indian way, everyone want to express their views at the same time! Since no one is the leader and everyone is, expressing ourselves is second nature.
Expressing can go beyond the obvious. It may include even Architecture!
Mad we were and mad we are. Mentioned below is a list of places that we think are architectural wonders that express how madly marvelous we Indians are!
Ajanta & Ellora: Only because they are relatively close by and belong to the same era, they are read together. Otherwise as diverse as chalk and cheese, these sites are about 100 kms apart and the stuff inside also belong to different times.
Ajanta: Had the British army officer John Smith not gone on a tiger hunting expedition, way back in 1819, we would have possibly missed it for another century and a half! About 2 dozen-odd caves with close to as many monuments cut-out from hard basalt rock something not too easy on the chisel, these contain Buddhist religious art which include paintings and sculptures which are described by authorities as "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting". It depicts the Buddha in various forms as depicted in the Jataka tales.
Ellora Caves: A corruption to its original name Elapura, this grand monument which lies 30 kms north-west of Aurangabad city in Maharashtra, was buit by the southern dynasty of Rashtrakutas, is as impressive as (if not more than) Ajanta. A total of 34 caves were carved between the 5th and 10th centuty AD into the vertical face of the Charanandri hills made up of basalt. Consisting of religious structures of the then prevailing three religions of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddisim, it does speak volumes of religious co-existence. Massive meeting arenas with high domes and so multi-storied buildings were carved out to perfection which is difficult to imagine today.
Shravanabelagola: If you ever happen to pass by the town of Hassan in the southern part of Karnataka, you would not miss the this wonder. A free standing monolith of 60 feet, it stands on a hillock called the Vindyagiri Hill. You have to be completely blind to miss it. Built in the 10th century AD, this monolith (yes, one single piece of dark grey granite!) was Chandragupta Maurya’s gift to us Indians. Arishtanemi, the supposed sculptor might have been a genius. Every detail taken care of and looking like it was made only a while ago and not +2000 yeara back!
Mahabalipuram: You could not expect anything less that this from the warrior-wrestler-artist King Narasimhavarman I! Yes, a full-fledged sea-port which exported as far as Rome, Greece and the South-East Asian countries- only around 2000 years back! Even the firangees acknowledge this !! A string of 7 temples in the form of chariots once lined the sea shore depticting the entire Mahabharata. The sea gods consumed 6 and left one for us to admire! They were rich!. Very, very filthy rich. From accounts of local poets, it seems ships were so laden with precious metals and goodies that they almost toppled over!
Hampi: After the chaos comes the silence. Once the seat of the Vijayanagara Empire (it in fact, predates it), it saw its heydays between the years 1343 to 1565. It is located in the north Karnataka district of Bellary infamous today for rampant, unchecked and mostly unauthorized mining. In fact, such has been the scale of destruction that it has started to affect the structures at Hampi and also the Tungabhadra dam close by. The word Hampi is derived from Pampa, the erstwhile name of Tungabhadra. Amongst the runis are a number of Hindu temples like the Virupaksha Temple, the Achyutaraya Temple and the Malyavanta Raghunathaswamy temple besides many others. At the height of the Vijayanagara empire, the city was enclosed in seven layers of fortification of which the innermost is still more-or-less intact.
These are by no means the only ones. India is dotted with such ancient wonders waiting to be discovered. We shall endeavor to bring these to you with the hope that these inspire you to try making your life just as grand and wonderful despite the problems and shortcomings you may face.
Alone it may be impossible to create master pieces. But then what are architects for? Dream, plan and employ, and hope your dreams come true!
One last thing. Cities come and cities go. What remains is stuff which is strong, resilient and architecturally sound. The Pune of today has come a long way from the small town of the Peshwas half-a-millenium back. One thing remains though. The sense of pride and self worth which has been nurtured by great people like the Warrior-King Shivaji. The mantle of building master pieces which promise to out-last their residents has now been passed on to great architects in Pune like Sovereign Architects who are proud of their lineage, work and ethics.
We hope to see our city in safe hands; hands which invoke safety and grandeur in equal measures.
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Please feel free to post your comments below.
About Author :- Vaishali Kawalkar is the founder of Sovereign Arcitects.
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