CHAPTER - 05 RULERS AND BUILDING
NOTES
- Between the eighth and the eighteenth centuries, kings and their officers built two kinds of structures.
- The first were forts, palaces, garden residences and tombs – safe, protected and grandiose places of rest in this world and the next; the second were structures meant for public activity including temples, mosques, tanks, wells, caravanserais and bazaars.
- Kings were expected to care for their subjects, and by making structures for their use and comfort, rulers hoped to win their praise.
- Construction activity was also carried out by others, including merchants. They built temples, mosques and wells. However, domestic architecture – large mansions (havelis) of merchants – has survived only from the eighteenth century.
· Engineering Skills and Construction:
(i) Monuments provide an insight into the technologies used for construction.
(ii) Between the seventh and tenth centuries, architects started adding more rooms, doors and windows to buildings.
(iii) Roofs, doors and windows were still made by placing a horizontal beam across two vertical columns, a style of architecture called “trabeate” or “corbelled”.
(iv) Between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, the trabeate style was used in the construction of temples, mosques, tombs and in buildings attached to large stepped-wells (baolis).
Temple Construction in the Early Eleventh Century:
(i) The Kandariya Mahadeva temple dedicated to Shiva was constructed in 999 by the king Dhangadeva of the Chandela dynasty.
(ii) An ornamented gateway led to an entrance, and the main hall (mahamandapa) where dances were performed.
(iii) The image of the chief deity was kept in the main shrine (garbhagriha). This was the place for ritual worship where only the king, his immediate family and priests gathered.
(iv) The Khajuraho complex contained royal temples where commoners were not allowed entry. The temples were decorated with elaborately carved sculptures.
(v) The Rajarajeshvara temple at Thanjavur had the tallest shikhara amongst temples of its time. Constructing it was not easy because there were no cranes in those days and the 90 tonne stone for the top of the shikhara was too heavy to lift manually. So the architects built an inclined path to the top of the temple, placed the boulder on rollers and rolled it all the way to the top.
(vii) Two technological and stylistic developments are noticeable from the twelfth century.
- The weight of the superstructure above the doors and windows was sometimes carried by arches. This architectural form was called “arcuate”.
- Limestone cement was increasingly used in construction. This was very high-quality cement, which, when mixed with stone chips hardened into concrete. This made construction of large structures easier and faster.
Buildings, Temples, Mosques and Tanks:
(i) Temples and mosques were beautifully constructed because they were places of worship.
(ii) They were also meant to demonstrate the power, wealth and devotion of the patron.
(iii) At the Rajarajeshvara temple, an inscription mentions that it was built by King Rajarajadeva for the worship of his god, Rajarajeshvaram.
(iv) The names of the ruler and the god were very similar. The king took the god’s name because it was auspicious and he wanted to appear like a god.
(v) Through the rituals of worship in the temple, one god (Rajarajadeva) honoured another (Rajarajeshvaram).
(vi) The largest temples were all constructed by kings. The other, lesser deities in the temple were gods and goddesses of the allies and subordinates of the ruler.
(vii) The temple was a miniature model of the world ruled by the king and his allies. As they worshipped their deities together in the royal temples, it seemed as if they brought the just rule of the gods on earth.
(viii) Muslim Sultans and Padshahs did not claim to be incarnations of god but Persian court chronicles described the Sultan as the “Shadow of God”.
(x) As each new dynasty came to power, kings wanted to emphasise their moral right to be rulers. Constructing places of worship provided rulers with the chance to proclaim their close relationship with God, especially important in an age of rapid political change.
(xi) Rulers also offered patronage to the learned and pious, and tried to transform their capitals and cities into great cultural centres that brought fame to their rule and their realm.
(xii) It was widely believed that the rule of a just king would be an age of plenty when the heavens would not withhold rain. At the same time, making precious water available by constructing tanks and reservoirs was highly praised.
(xiii) Sultan Iltutmish won universal respect for constructing a large reservoir just outside Dehli-i-Kuhna. It was called the Hauz-i-Sultani or the “King’s Reservoir”. Rulers often constructed tanks and reservoirs – big and small – for use by ordinary people. Sometimes these tanks and reservoirs were part of a temple, mosque or a gurdwara.
· Why were Temples Destroyed?:
(i) As kings built temples to demonstrate their devotion to God and their power and wealth, it is not surprising that when they attacked one another’s kingdoms they often targeted these buildings.
(ii) In the early ninth century, the Pandyan king Shrimara Shrivallabha invaded Sri Lanka and defeated the king, Sena I (831-851). The blow to the pride of the Sinhalese ruler had to be avenged and the next Sinhalese ruler, Sena II, ordered his general to invade Madurai, the capital of the Pandyas.
(iii) Similarly in the early eleventh century, when the Chola king Rajendra I built a Shiva temple in his capital, he filled it with prized statues seized from defeated rulers. An incomplete list included: a Sun-pedestal from the Chalukyas, a Ganesha statue and several statues of Durga; a Nandi statue from the eastern Chalukyas; an image of Bhairava (a form of Shiva) and Bhairavi from the Kalingas of Orissa; and a Kali statue from the Palas of Bengal.
(iv) Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni was a contemporary of Rajendra I. During his campaigns in the subcontinent, he also attacked the temples of defeated kings and looted their wealth and idols. By destroying temples – especially the one at Somnath – he tried to win credit as a great hero of Islam.
· Gardens, Tombs and Forts:
(i) Under the Mughals, architecture became more complex. Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, and especially Shah Jahan were personally interested in literature, art and architecture.
(ii) In his autobiography, Babur described his interest in planning and laying out formal gardens, placed within rectangular walled enclosures and divided into four quarters by artificial channels.
(iii) These gardens were called chahar bagh, four gardens, because of their symmetrical division into quarters. Beginning with Akbar, some of the most beautiful chahar baghs were constructed by Jahangir and Shah Jahan in Kashmir, Agra and Delhi.
(iv) There were several important architectural innovations during Akbar’s reign. For inspiration, Akbar’s architects turned to the tombs of his Central Asian ancestor, Timur.
(v) The central towering dome and the tall gateway (pishtaq) became important aspects of Mughal architecture, first visible in Humayun’s tomb.
- The tomb was placed in the centre of a huge formal chahar bagh and built in the tradition known as “eight paradises” or hasht bihisht – a central hall surrounded by eight rooms.
- The building was constructed with red sandstone, edged with white marble.
(vi) It was during Shah Jahan’s reign that the different elements of Mughal architecture were fused together in a grand harmonious synthesis. His reign witnessed a huge amount of construction activity especially in Agra and Delhi.
(vii) The ceremonial halls of public and private audience (diwan-i khas o am) were carefully planned. Placed within a large courtyard, these courts were also described as chihil sutun or forty-pillared halls.
(viii) Shah Jahan’s audience halls were specially constructed to resemble a mosque. The pedestal on which his throne was placed was frequently described as the qibla, the direction faced by Muslims at prayer, since everybody faced that direction when court was in session.
(ix) The idea of the king as a representative of God on earth was suggested by these architectural features. The connection between royal justice and the imperial court was emphasised by Shah Jahan in his newly constructed court in the Red Fort at Delhi.
(xi) The construction of Shah Jahan’s audience hall aimed to communicate that the king’s justice would treat the high and the low as equals creating a world where all could live together in harmony.
(xii) In the early years of his reign, Shah Jahan’s capital was at Agra, a city where the nobility had constructed their homes on the banks of the river Yamuna. These were set in the midst of formal gardens constructed in the chahar bagh format.
(xiii) The chahar bagh garden also had a variation that historians describe as the “riverfront garden”. In this, the dwelling was not located in the middle of the chahar bagh but at its edge, close to the bank of the river.
(xiv) Shah Jahan adapted the river-front garden in the layout of the Taj Mahal, the grandest architectural accomplishment of his reign. Here the white marble mausoleum was placed on a terrace by the edge of the river and the garden was to its south.
(xv) Shah Jahan developed this architectural form as a means to control the access that nobles had to the river. In the new city of Shahjahanabad that he constructed in Delhi, the imperial palace commanded the river-front. Only specially favoured nobles – like his eldest son Dara Shukoh – were given access to the river. All others had to construct their homes in the city away from the River Yamuna.
· Region and Empire:
EXERCISE
- A Temple communicated the importance of a king as they were meant to demonstrate the power, wealth and devotion of the patron.
- It helped the king to appear like a God as the king took the God’s name because it was auspicious. For example, in the Rajarajeshvara temple, there is an inscription that mentions that it was built by King Rajarajadeva for the worship of his God, Rajarajeshvaram. The king's name is similar to God's name. Through the rituals of worship in the temple one, God (Rajarajadeva) honoured another (Rajarajeshvaram).
- As each new dynasty came to power, kings wanted to emphasize their moral rights to be rulers.
- It also gives a chance to the king to proclaim close relationships with God and come closer to people.
- The temple was a miniature model of the world ruled by the king and his allies.
- They worshipped their deities together in the royal temples; it seemed as if they brought the just rule of the Gods on earth.
- During Shah Jahan's reign, the different elements of Mughal architecture were fused together in a grand harmonious synthesis. The ceremonial halls of the public and private audience (diwan-i khas or aam) were carefully planned. These courts were also described as chihil sutun or forty-pillared halls, placed within a large courtyard. The general public was received here and their grievances heard.
- Shah Jahan’s audience halls were specially constructed to resemble a mosque. In the centre of the hall was placed the peacock throne on which Shahjahan would sit and preside over the meetings.
- The pedestal on which his throne was placed was frequently described as the qibla which means the direction in which Muslims pray as everybody faced that direction when court was in session. The stream of paradise would flow through the centre of the Diwan-i-khas and the arches at the corner of the hall bore inscriptions from the lines of the famous 9thcentury Persian poet Firdausi.
- The idea of the king as a representative of God on earth was suggested by these architectural features.
Therefore, by the means of architecture style, this image was created.
- The architectural features highlighted the idea of the king a representative of God on earth. Hence people could identify with the king as a just God.
- The connection between royal justice and the imperial court was emphasised on by Emperor Shah Jahan in his newly constructed court in the Red Fort at Delhi.
- There were a series of pietra dura inlays behind the emperor's throne which depicted that legendary Greek God Orpheus playing the lute. It was believed that Orpheus’s music could calm ferocious beasts until they resided together peacefully.
- The construction of the audience halls aimed to communicate that the king's justice would treat the high and the low as equals creating a world where all could live together in harmony.
- The imperial palace commanded the front of river Yamuna in the new city of Shahjahanabad in Delhi.
- Only especially favoured nobles, like Shah Jahan's eldest son Dara Shukoh were given access to the river.
- All others had to construct their homes in the city away from the River Yamuna.
- The access to the river Yamuna for the nobles was controlled by developing architectural form in which the white marble mausoleum was placed on a terrace by the edge of the river and the garden was to its south.
