Encyclopedia of society and culture in the ancient world ( PDFDrive ) 97

68 architecture: Asia and the Pacific constructed in a similar way It, too, has largely disappeared The Great Wall that remains a tourist attraction in China was built under the Ming Dynasty over a 300-year period beginning in the 14th century ARCHITECTURE OF I NDIA Historians and archaeologists use the phrase Indian architecture to refer to the architecture not just of the nation of India but of the entire Asian subcontinent as well, including the modern-day nations of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka In ancient times, and even in modern life, these nations shared a culture and religion that gave rise to a common architecture The history of Indian architecture begins in the Indus Valley (roughly corresponding to the modern Indian state of Punjab) when, some 5,000 years ago, people migrated into the area and found a fertile, hospitable land Archaeologists have discovered the remains of cities that were laid out with a degree of planning that would put to shame many modern cities, with defensive walls and streets arranged in a regular octagonal pattern, making it easier for carts laden with food and other materials to make turns The remains of numerous houses have been found These houses were built around a central courtyard that afforded privacy while also allowing light to enter the rooms constructed around it The courtyard also provided a cool place for the family to gather during hot spells, yet it held warmth during colder weather Long before the ancient Romans developed plumbing systems, the cities of the Indus Valley had sewage and drainage systems Roughly 3,500 years ago the cities of the Indus Valley, most prominently Mohenjo Daro, fell to nomadic Aryan invaders from the northwest These invaders drove out the indigenous people, but rather than occupying their cities, the invaders preferred to live in forest hamlets Although little of their architecture survives intact, archaeologists have studied ruins and have determined that the simple architecture of the Aryans influenced Indian architecture for many generations Much of what is known about the architecture of this age, called the Vedic Age (ca 1500–ca 600 b.c.e.), is preserved in the ancient texts, the Vedas, that later formed the basis of Hinduism It is known that the Aryans built homes with the abundant materials that lay at hand, including lumber and bamboo thatch Their homes were circular and domelike, though later the homes expanded into a more rectangular shape In time Aryan villages developed into small cities divided into quadrants and intersected by two main streets at right angles to each other One quadrant was for the city’s citadel, which guarded it from outsiders A second was residential, a third was for merchants, and the fourth was for tradesmen A third phase of Indian architecture is associated with the rise of Buddhism The connections between Buddhism and architecture, though, provide an interesting case study in the links between religion and other elements of a culture During the Vedic period and up to about 500 b.c.e the teachings of the Vedas had an impact on virtually every aspect of people’s lives The rigid caste system separating the social classes of India emerged, and religion consisted primarily of pure ritual At about this time two major religious reformers rose One was the Buddha, or Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in 563 b.c.e and founded the Buddhist religion The other was Mahavira, the date of whose birth is uncertain but whose life probably overlapped that of the Buddha Mahavira was the founder of Jainism, another major Indian religion and one that has many features in common with Buddhism In both instances, the new emphasis was on the nature of the soul rather than on ritual observances Both of these key religious figures attempted to reform Vedic culture by lessening some of the emphasis on ritual Buddhism turned out to be the religion that had the wider appeal, and it won the support not only of the region’s mercantile classes but also of the king, Asoka the Great (r ca 273–232 b.c.e.), who declared Buddhism the state religion Under Asoka, funds were provided to build monasteries throughout the region Further, because the Buddha himself was the closest thing to a god among Buddhists, his relics became scattered throughout the land The key point is that these religious developments gave rise to much of the architecture that developed in the Buddha’s wake Accordingly, throughout India a large number of shrines were built in honor of the Buddha, many of them little more than piles of rocks purporting to contain a relic of the Buddha In time, however, the people began to believe that these shrines needed to be improved, which gave rise to more elaborate stupas, or spherical configurations of stone, that reflected the growing influence of Buddhism These stupas could be found throughout the country, and people visited them as shrines By about the second century b.c.e., though, the influence of Buddhism began to wane India’s rulers were returning to the teachings of the Vedas, and they found the Vedic caste system more congenial to their notions of power After the reign of Asoka the Great and the decline of two major Indian ruling dynasties (the Kushans in the north and the Andhras in the south), Indian art and architecture underwent a severe decline Buddhism, however, by no means disappeared Merchants continued to support Buddhism, and they supplied most of the funds that allowed Buddhist monks to establish monasteries and centers of learning One of the most important of these centers was Sanchi, located near the modern-day city of Bhopal in India Sanchi survives as a major pilgrimage site for modern Buddhists and as a tourist attraction for people the world over The stupa at Sanchi is a domelike structure with a surrounding path and topped with a finial called a harmika (A finial in this context is an ornamental projection from the top of a wall or column.) The domed shape of the stupa reflects the shape of the universe, and the harmika represented the Bodhi tree where the Buddha achieved enlightenment In addition to the main stupa are a number of other buildings that serve the needs of visitors and the monks who travel to the site to meditate and penance One, called the vihara, consists of cubicles, or cells, arranged around a central court-