Short notes on Vijayanagar Architecture

The Vijayanagar rulers were great builders. They were the inheritors of the rich traditions of their predecessors, the Cholas, Pandyas and the Hoysalas. They carried on the architectural activities with such modifications as the changing times demanded.

The foundation of the new city of Vijayanagar gave them ample scope to plan and develop it according to their own ideas.

Unfortunately, most of it is now in ruins represented by the well-known site Hampi, which is dotted with little hills of granite and not a blade of grass grows’there. It is difficult to form an exact idea about its grandeur and beauty. The accounts of the contemporary foreign travellers, however, shed light on this great city and the magnificent buildings which adorned it.

Nicolo Conti, an Italian traveller, and Abdur Razzaq an ambassador from Shah Rukh of Persia, who visited Vijayanagar in the 15th century speak highly of the country and its people. According to Abdur Razzaq, the city of Vijayanagar was surrounded by seven fortifications, the space in between was used for various purposes such as laying gardens, growing vegetables and cultivation.

He estimated the total area of the city to be 64 square miles. The Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes who visited the city during the reign of the great Krishnadevaraya observes: “The city was as large as Rome and was a very beautiful sight.”

Paes was deeply impressed to see the palace of the king which occupied a larger area than the castles of Lisbon. Its wide roads with a temple at the end of each street, and beautiful houses attracted the attention of the travellers. There were a large number of gardens and orchards spread all over the city.

The palace of the king was the most conspicuous building in the city. Though nothing remains of it now, but the description of the travellers throw light on its magnificence. The palace contained, according to Percy Brown, halls of public and private audiences. There were queens’ apartments, Lotus Mahal, Rani Mahal, the bazars besides elephants’ stables, guard rooms, watch towers, etc.

Abdur Razzaq found the king’s audience hall very impressive as it was “elevated above all the rest of lofty buildings in the citadel”. The Hindu artisans used beams and lintels to cover open spaces while the Muslim architects substituted arches and domes.

The halls in the imperial palace were decorated with beautiful painted pictures which depicted the daily life of the people including the Portuguese.

The palace had a number of rooms, the dining hall, the drinking hall, etc. The Lotus Mahal was a beautiful two-storeyed building representing the Indo-Sarcenic style of architecture.

The pillars and arches were of Indo-Sarcenic style while the remaining portions of the building i.e. roof, base, stucco ornamentation were all indigenous. It is very difficult to understand exactly the architectural designs of these buildings as most of them have fallen a prey to the ravages of time.

At the top of the houses were kalasas or pinnacles and flag staffs. These palaces were built of bricks. However, granite was used for most of the buildings and for the houses of the rich which had beautiful gardens.

Usually the walls and pillars were ornamented with sculptures made of stone or wood. The houses of the middle class people were made of mud. All these houses had flat roofs. The poor people lived in thatched cottages.

Reference may also be made to the baths which were constructed by the Rayas for the use of the public as well as the nobles and the queens on the riverside. Arrangements had also been made for the bathing of the queens and Rayas inside the palace by constructing a reservoir which was fitted with water by the use of earthen-ware pipes.

Penukonda or Ghandari served as a second capital of the Vijayanagar rulers. Its strong fort contained palaces and temples. Gagan Mahal, one of the important structures which escaped destruction, is a stone building with a high tower on the top.

Some of the palace buildings known as the Raja Mahal and Rani Mahal in the fort of Chandragiri are stilll extant. Raja Mahal is a three-storeyed building with a terraced roof and ornamental parapet. Both these buildings show stucco decoration of very high quality.

Some of the nayaks who were feudatories of the Vijayanagar rulers constructed their palaces of which Timura Nayak’s palace at Madura is most important. Its main characteristics are “heavy columns, high arches with beautiful stucco ornamentation and towers.”

Besides the secular architecture, the most important contribution of the Vijayanagar rulers was in the domain of religious edifices. Temple architecture reached to new heights under the patronage of Krishnadevaraya and Achyuta Raya. It received a new impetus and did not remain a stagnant art. New elements were introduced which added to its variety and richness.

The elaboration in rituals of worships necessitated increase in the number of buildings within a temple. In addition to the main shrine, a number of other buildings were provided such as Amma shrine where the Lord or main deity’s consort resided. This practice which began in the late Chola period now became the rule.

It was customary to build this smaller temple in the north-west. The other building was known as Kalayanamandapa. This was an open pillared pavilion with a raised platform where the main deity and his consort were shown on important ceremonial occasions. To this was added the rath or the temple car which was a chariot usually made of stone with requisitely designed wheels.

Another feature of the temple architecture in this age was the construction of massive walls around the shrine as a safeguard against intruders. The Vijayanagar style of architecture abounds in ornamentation but a balance is kept between structure and decoration.

The pillars are the most prominent feature of these temples. As observed by Prof. S.K. Saraswati, “The most frequent design is one in which the shaft becomes either a central core or background for a group of statuary, of substantial proportion and carved practically in the round.

Such statuary attached to the pillars takes the form of caryatids of such shapes as yalis or rampant hippogryphs with fighting riders and groups of soldiers, and in the treatment of such caryatids is often noticed the most ingenious and imaginative fantasy.”

Prof. Saraswati has referred to other important features of Vijayanagar style of temple and architecture such as monolithic pillars, ornate brackets, decoration on exterior side of the walls, etc.

A large number of temples were built during this period. We can refer here only to a few important shrines to give the readers an idea about their style and variety. The Chalukyan temples Virupaksha and Bhuvanesvari were renovated and certain additions were made. Krishnadevaraya built a temple dedicated to Lord Krishna and installed the image of Balkrishna which he had brought from the fort of Gajapati ruler after defeating him.

He also renovated and even rebuilt the temple of Hazara Rama. It was meant to serve as a place of worship for the royal family. Its most interesting feature are the four finely polished black stone pillars which support the mandapa. They have beautiful sculptures carved on them while the deities on the pillars represent Vishnu, Varatha, Lakshminarayana, Krishna, Brahma and others.

The outer walls of the shrine and those of the court depict scenes from the epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The exterior of the wall contains bas-relief sculpture depicting scenes from the Mahatiavami festival. There is also a comparatively smaller temple in the outer court of the temple.

There is a hall separately built for the marriage of the deity which is annually celebrated with great pomp and show. Equally important are the temples of Vitthala and Pattabhirama. The former seemed to have never been completed. Its construction began during the reign of Sangama rulers and continued by Krishnadevaraya and Achyuta.

It is a huge shrine (538 feet by 315 feet) with 6 separate structures, mostly pillared halls, while the main shrine in the centre is dedicated to Panduranga or Vithola, a form of Vishnu. The most important feature of the temple are the mahamandappa or pillared portico in front, garbhagriha in the rear and Devi temple in the north.

The mahamandappa has 56 pillars; 46 of them arranged regularly and exquisitely designed along with the other 16 they form an oblong court in the centre. The ceilings above these pillars are highly ornamented. The Devi temple is highly ornamented especially its exterior walls. Kalyanamandapa is another highly ornated structure.

It is an open pavilion. Besides, the ceilings, cornices even inside of every beam has been ornamented with delicate carvings or some motif and “if the roof of the mandapa and the tower over the sanctum had been completed, it would have ranked as one of the most successful production of south Indian temple architecture”.

Fergusson rightly observes that the Vitthalaswami temple “shows the extreme limit in florid magnificence to which the style is advanced.” A rath in stone with finely carved wheels adds beauty to the temple. There are three entrances to the temple on the east, south and the north marked by gopuras but the main entrance seems to be on the east where the gopura has mandapas on either side.

The Pattabhirama temple, the biggest temple at Hampi was built by Achyuta Raya. The main temple has the usual design and structures as the Vittala temple with the difference that it is on a larger scale.

Achyuta Raya tried to build a temple on the same scale as that of Vitthalabhai. It was constructed in 1539 but was a mere imitation of the original temple lacking its beauty and grace.

The temple is not of a very high order as it was built in a very short time. But there were some good sculptures on the pillars in the halls, in the panels between the plinth and the cornice moldings of the basement on the west and north side of verandah. It is now in ruins.

The construction of Veerabhadraswami temple at Lepakashi in Hindpur district was begun by a feudatory of Achyuta Raya. He utilized all the dues he owed to the Raya on the construction of the temple.

The defaulting chief was blinded at the orders of the Raya and the temple remained incomplete. The temple at Tadpatri, not deserted deserves mention. It was constructed by a governor of Krishnadevaraya.

It is quite evident from its gopurams that it was designed on a large scale than the Vitthalswami temple. Fergusson was impressed with the beauty of these gopurams, “the perpendicular part of which was embellished with most elaborate and intricate sculpture…if compared with Halebid or Belur, these Tadapatri gopurams stand that test (of comparison) better than any other works of the Vijayanagar Rajas.”

A number of temples were built during this period at various places in the far south such as Vellore, Kumbhakonam, Kalahasti, Virinchipuram, Srirangam and Conjeevaram.

We have already referred to the distinctive features of Vijayanagar temple architecture. Kalayanmandapa or large open halls invariably forms a part of this style. Irrespective of the number of pillars, these halls are known as thousand-pillared mandapas.

The pillars and the ceilings are all ornamented. The best examples of these mandapas are in Jalakanthiswara temple at Vellore, Varadaraja and Ekambranatha temples at Kanchipuram, Jambukesvara temple near Virinjipuram and Parvati temple at Chidambaram in south Arcot district.

Percy Brown has described the Kalayanmandapa at Vellore as the “richest and most beautiful structure of its kind.” The mandapa in the Jambukeshwara temple near Trichnopoly is elegant and majestic, while that of Jalankanthiswara in Vellore is known for its carvings.

Gopurams are in fact the entrances to the courts and are a unique feature of the South Indian temples particularly those built by the Vijayanagar rulers. These colossal gateways lend prestige and glamour to the temples and were “covered by a lofty pyramidal tower rising up in storeys and ultimately crowned by a barred-shaped vault.”

The gateway was usually built in stone while the upper storeys and the tower in brick and plaster. The latter portion was ornamented with impressive sculptures and other beautiful designs in stucco. The most remarkable of them is the gopuram in the temple of Ekambaranath which had ten storeys rising to the height of 188 feet.

It was constructed by Krishnadevaraya and is a most massive and decorative structure of its kind. To quote Prof. Saraswati, “Every motif; whether figured or decorative is beautifully adjusted to the scale of the monument and of the section in which it is placed.

Therefore, in spite of exuberance; there is no sense of extravagance, nor lack of clarity; everything an integral part of the design as a whole”. These gopuras are merely ornamental but are also a help to understand the distinctive features of various sects, their difference as well as common points.

‘Corbel’ which is placed below the pillars is an important feature of the buildings of Vijayanagar. However, it had undergone several changes in design and decoration.

In the Vijayanagar period it transformed to the form of falling flowers instead of ordinary decoration in earlier periods. In the closing years of the empire the drooping flowers were separated from the rest of the stone. It had at its end a sort of finial (pumunai).

As already referred to, the stone used for many of the buildings of Vijayanagar is granite. However, some of the idols of gods and goddesses in the temple are made of dark green chlorite stone. It is interesting to note that mortar was not used in the earlier buildings of Vijayanagar.

Slabs of granite stone were fitted so accurately that the use of mortar was not required. But it was a serious drawback as grass and plants grew in the spaces between granite stones weakening the whole structure.

The traditions of Vijayanagar were continued by the nayak rulers who set up their power in different parts of the empire. Temple architecture was greatly elaborated. Gopuras were constructed at the four cardinal points and temple enclosures increased in number.

The temple at Srirangam, which is the largest of south Indian temples, has seven enclosures. Tirumala extended the Minakshisundara temple and built the statues of nayaka kings outside the temple.