Page:A Handbook of Indian Art.djvu/156

86 the Jains before described, they reproduce in their scheme the main features of the ancient Aryan town-plan as described in the canonical books of the Indian craftsman, the Silpa-Sāstras. The inner temple represents the king's palace and council-house approached by the two main thoroughfares, the Rājapatha, or King's street, and the Vāmanapatha, Short or South street. The bazaars, bathing places, debating-halls, public orchards, city walls and gates are all indicated in the lay-out of the great South Indian temples, each one of which should have a separate monograph.

When the distinction in symbolism between the typical Saiva and Vaishnava temples is understood, it will not be difficult to follow the evolution of the architecture of the two great cults of modern Hinduism, for the study of which a great mass of material is available. We must now briefly consider a third architectural group which, after Fergusson, has been classified archæologically as Chalukyan, because its geographical distribution approximately corresponds to the territories of the Chalukyan kings who ruled in the Dekhan from about the seventh to the end of the twelfth centuries This name is unsatisfactory, because the style did not begin with the Chalukyan dynasty, nor was it exclusively characteristic of the temples built under its patronage. Fergusson states that the Chalukyan style was naturally evolved from the Dravidian, i.e. the orthodox Saiva, type of temple. But this is hardly correct, as the design of the temples included in this category was a compromise between the "Dravidian" pyramidal stūpa-tower of the Saiva type, and the "Indo-Aryan" curvilinear sikhara of the Vaishnava type.

We have noticed already that the two great schools of Indian religious thought, the Saiva and Vaishnava,