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Architecture 170A
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Persepolis Lauriya Nandangargh Sanchi-Great Stupa Karli-Chaitya hall Ajanta |
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Iran and India 500 BCE - 500 CE I. Introduction of monumental stone architecture by rulers of new empires; integration in South Asia of imported architectural motifs into changing local religious practices. II. Achaemened empire ruled from Palace of Persepolis (Iran), 518-460 BCE. synthesis of architectural motifs from throughout the empire, which included Egypt, the Ionian Islands of Greece, and Mesopotamia. Built of stone and mudbrick. Set atop a 1500 x 900 foot stone terrace originally topped by mudbrick walls. Individual elements include stairs decorated with low relief sculptures, two hypostyle halls, the Apadama or audience hall and the Hall of 100 Columns (the throne room), the Gate of Xerxes, and the private quarters housed in the Palace of Darius. New column types with bell-shaped bases and animal-headed capitals. III. Impact of Alexander the Great's 4th century conquest of the Achaemened Empire on the neighboring Mauryan Empire in India. Immigrant builders from Iran introduced stone architecture into India, where its forms were transformed to suit local purposes. Persopolis-like pillars erected throughout the country by Asoka (ruled 269 - 232 BCE) as semi-sacred emblems of his political authority (axis mundi). Example from Lauriya Nandangarh, erected 243 BCE. IV. Early Buddhist architecture in India: Great Stupa, Sanchi, 2nd-1st centuries BCE. monumentalization of the axis mundi based on funerary mounds. Semi-circular mound stands for the dome of heaven. Axis pillar is capped with a chatri (umbrella) and enclosed within a fence called a vedika. Entrances to the circumambulatory path around the stupa marked at the cardinal points by gateways called toranas. V. Buddhist cave temples in India: From free-standing stupas to the carving out of stupas from the living rock within caves as in Chaitya Hall, Cave 8, Karli, 1st century CE. Apse-ended hall culminating in stupa. Nave flanked by columns creating aisles for cicumambulation path. Buddhist monasteries at Ajanta: Facade, Chaitya Hall 19, c 500-550 BCE. gable form of Indian vernacular architecture repeated in stone and at miniature scale as architectural ornament. Vihara, Cave 2, late 5th century CE. Balance of individual cells and locus of communal worship in an elaborately painted square central space with statue of Buddha. |
