Types of stone
architecture
There are two sorts of
stone architecture:
Rock cut. Rock-cut
architecture is formed by carving into natural rock. Usually hewn into the
edges of mountain ridges, rockcut structures are made by excavating rock until
the specified forms are achieved.
Stone built. the main
target of this guidebook, stone-built architecture, on the opposite hand,
involves assembling cut stone pieces to make an entire .
Buddhism gets the ball
rolling
The first stone
architecture in India was rock cut and executed by Buddhist monks; before these
structures, all architecture had been made from wood. the foremost impressive
examples were rock-cut religious sanctuaries, excavated directly out of the
basalt mountains lining the western fringe of the Deccan Plateau, the elevated,
v-shaped landmass that comprises most of the Indian peninsula. The caves at
Ajanta - also as those at nearby Bedsa, Bhaja, Karla, Kondane, Nashik, and
Pitalkhora - were a part of this first wave of excavations.
Inspiration for India's
rock architecture
Early Buddhist
architecture was likely indirectly inspired by that of the Egyptians. The
Egyptians were probably the primary civilization within the world to construct
stone architecture; they began with stone-built pyramids within the 27th
century BCE (Djoser's Step Pyramid in Saqqara) and continued with rock-cut
tombs within the 16th century BCE (Valley of the Kings in Luxor).
At an equivalent time,
similar stone-built pyramids, called ziggurats, were being built not too
distant in Mesopotamia (modern day Iran and Iraq); the earliest probably go back
the late a part of Sumeria's Early Dynastic period (2900-2350 BCE). The
ziggurat pyramid design, however, was never transformed from stepped to smooth
edged, as was the case in Egypt.
Egyptian and Mesopotamian
forms and building practices were borrowed by the Persians, who embraced
rock-cut architecture. In fact, the royal tombs of Darius (522 BCE to 486 BCE)
and therefore the remainder of the Old Persian (Achaemenid) Empire were rock
cut; they're located just outside of the traditional city of Persepolis in
modern-day Iran. presumably drawing on Persian precedent, India's earliest
stone architects commenced building rock-cut architecture within the 3rd-2nd
centuries BCE. These architects adapted Persian forms - infusing them with
local design preferences derived from their existing wood-based architecture
and introducing entirely new features to suit their unique religious practices
- to make rock caves with a completely new aesthetic.
Why were the Buddhists the
primary to create in stone?
It appears that the
Buddhists just happened to possess the support of rulers and rich merchants
during the critical period during which Persian rock-cut architectural
practices began to trickle into the subcontinent. confine mind, although the
Buddhist faith was founded in India within the 6th century BCE, it didn't gain
widespread adoption until it received imperial sponsorship by the powerful
Mauryan Emperor, Ashoka, who converted to Buddhism and ruled most of the Indian
subcontinent from 269-232 BCE. the religion garnered subsequent momentum as a
rising merchant class were interested in Buddhism.
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