Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

Elsewhere in the peninsula too there are several notable Muslim structures, such as Gol Gumbaz, the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah, a seventeenth century sultan of Bijapur. This is one of the largest domed structures in the world, and consists of a massive square tomb chamber, covering an area of 1693 square metres, and is crowned by an immense dome of nearly 44 metres diameter.

In time the dominant presence of Muslim architectural forms in urban India came to have a growing influence on the buildings of Hindus. This was particularly evident in North India, but several examples of it can be seen in peninsular India too, as in the arches and domes of the ‘elephant stables’ in Vijayanagar. There was however no notable Muslim influence on Hindu temple architecture anywhere in India, for temples were built strictly according to canonical prescriptions. There was in fact hardly any major new temple construction in northern and central India at this time, as the entire region was under Muslim rule and the sultans, in conformity with Islamic law, forbade the construction of new temples in their territories.

But there was at this time a good amount of temple construction in South India, the region outside Muslim rule; in fact, temple architecture now attained its zenith in India, in the colossal temples teeming with sculptures built in South India by the rajas. The last great phase of temple construction in pre-modern India was in Vijayanagar and its successor kingdoms, and this activity reached its peak in the sixteenth century. One of the main features of these temple complexes was the kalyana-mandapam , the ‘thousand-pillared’—figuratively so called — marriage hall, built for the annual celebration of the marriage of the chief deity of the temple and his consort. This hall was usually adorned luxuriantly with sculptures, particularly so its numerous pillars, each of which had several sculptures of rampant horses, hippogryphs and other mythical creatures, all carved out of a single block of stone. Some of these pillars are called ‘musical pillars’, for they produce pleasant musical tones which when tapped.

The Vijayanagar temples were the most lavish temples ever built in India, unmatched for their decorative luxuriance, particularly so the Vittala temple in Hampi. This tradition of temple building was continued in the post-Vijayanagar period by the Marathas, especially by the Nayaks of Madurai. In many of the South Indian temples the gopurams (gate towers) are much taller than the shrines themselves, because the temples they fronted were usually old and sacred, and it would have been sacrilegious to demolish them and build anew.

AS IN ARCHITECTURE, so also in art, Hindu and Muslim ideals and practices were fundamentally different. Muslims abhorred the representation of living beings in art, but Hindu art was primarily figurative, in painting as well as in sculpture. So while mosques were entirely free of figurative art, Hindu temples generally teemed with the sculptures and paintings of people, gods, animals and mythological creatures. Furthermore, Hindu temple art often depicted men and women in erotic play, which Muslims considered as totally abhorrent.

Also, there were often whimsical elements in Hindu temple art, which would have seemed to Muslims as totally inappropriate in a place of worship. Thus a sculpture in the Varadaraja Perumal temple in Kanchipuram depicts a man with a beard and moustache on one side of his face, while on the other side his face is clean-shaven; also, he wears Muslim-style slacks on one side, but on the other side wears a dhoti like Hindus. Another sculpture in this temple shows a man sexually penetrating a bent over naked woman from the back, and at the same time triumphantly blowing a trumpet. And in Mamallapuram, among the numerous figures on the massive bas-relief panel of rock sculpture there, there is an amusing carving of an ascetic cat standing on its hind legs doing penance, in the presence of worshipful mice. Mamallapuram also has some engaging portrait sculptures, such as that of Mahendra-varman and his two queens on the Varaha cave temple there. Apart from these stone sculptures Hindu art at this time also produced some exquisite cast-bronze statues, such as the life-size portraits of Krishnadeva and his two consorts at the portals of the Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh.

As in the case of figurative sculptures, orthodox Muslim rulers also disfavoured figurative paintings. There were however some sultans who patronised such paintings, and even adorned their palaces with them. But many of these paintings were later erased by their orthodox successors. The classic example of this was the action of Firuz Tughluq, who, despite being a keen lover of art, not only prohibited the painting of portraits, but erased many of these paintings and other decorative elements in royal palaces. It should be however noted that orthodox sultans like Firuz were not against art as such, but only against the forms of art that offended their religious beliefs. Nor did they have any objection to Hindus patronising figurative sculptures and paintings. Some of the sultans did indeed destroy a number of Hindu temples and vandalised their idols, but this was part of their military campaigns to demoralize and subjugate Hindus, and was not an expression of philistinism.

During the early medieval period there was a fair amount of activity in miniature painting in India, mostly by Jains in their palm leaf manuscripts. These paintings were however mostly formulaic, and can hardly be described as works of art. In them, the faces of persons — always drawn in profile, but two-eyed, with the second eye protruding right out of the face at a right-angle — were all of a type and had little individuality in them. Several Buddhist palm leaf manuscripts of the period also had similar drab miniature illustrations.

But book illustrations underwent a major change by around the fifteenth century, because of the use of paper for writing texts. Paper, because of its larger size and smoother surface than palm leaf, allowed freer scope for painting illustrations, and this led to a great improvement in the quality of text illustrations, as Mughal and Rajasthani miniatures show. And some of the manuscript books made at this time were in themselves, as books, major works of art, their pages illuminated with gold, and adorned with floral, calligraphic and abstract designs, apart from having miniature illustrations.

SOME OF THE Delhi sultans, particularly Firuz Tughluq, were ardent conservationists. Firuz had to his credit transporting, with scrupulous care, two Asoka pillars from their original sites in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, and installing them in Delhi with equal care. ‘Quantities of … silk cotton were placed around the column, and when the earth at its base was removed, it fell gently over the bed prepared for it,’ reports Afif, a courtier-historian of Firuz. ‘The cotton was then removed by degrees, and after some days the pillar lay safe upon the ground. When the foundations of the pillar were examined, a large square stone was found as its base, which was also taken out. The pillar was then encased from top to bottom in reeds and raw skins, so that no damage would occur to it. A carriage, with forty-two wheels, was constructed … and after great labour and difficulty the pillar was raised on to the carriage. A strong rope was fastened to each wheel [of the carriage], and 200 men pulled at each of these ropes. By the simultaneous exertions of so many thousand men the carriage was moved, and was brought to the banks of the Yamuna. Here the Sultan came to meet it. A number of large boats had been collected, some of which could carry 5,000 and 7,000 mans of grain, and the least of them 2,000 mans . The column was very ingeniously transferred to these boats, and then taken to Firuzabad, where it was landed and conveyed into the kushk with infinite labour and skill.’