Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/64

 34 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. Presidency is that at Amaravati, on the Krishna ; and from that vicinity northwards to Orissa there are remains showing that there must have been flourishing communities there both of Buddhists and Jains in early times. Whether the prevalence of such structures in this region was due to a colony or settle- ment formed by the northern Buddhists, at or near their port of departure for Java and their eastern settlements, may be doubted. The Andhras who ruled over the districts, were either Buddhists or very liberal patrons of the sect. At Guntupalle in the Godavari district have been found a group of rock-cut caves, a structural chaitya, and a stupa, whilst at Chezarla, in the Nellor district, another chaitya has been discovered almost entire, though now used as a Hindu shrine. 1 And remains of stupas have been excavated in the Kistna district at Jaggayyapeta, Bhattiprolu, Gudivada, Guntupalle and Ghantarala ; 2 unfortun- ately they have been utterly destroyed some within living memory. 3 The rock-cut temples at Badami and Mamallapuram are the works of Hindus in the 6th and /th centuries, and the structural temples of Kailasanath and Vaikunthaperumal at Conjivaram are of nearly the same age, and, with some others, they help materially to illustrate the history of the style till the 8th century. From that time forward their building activity was enormous. The style culminated in the i6th and I7th centuries, to perish in the 1 8th. When the history of the south does acquire something like consistency it takes the form of a triarchy of small states. The eldest and most important, that of Madura so called after Mathura (or Muttra) on the Jamna was also the most civilised, and continued longest as a united and independent kingdom. The Cholas rose into power on the banks of the Kaveri, and to the northward of it, about the year 1000, though no doubt they existed as a small state about Conjivaram for some centuries before that time. The third, the Chera, were located on the west coast, extending from the Tulu country southwards, and including Malabar and most of Travankor. Tradition assigns to them a dynasty of kings called Perumals which ended in the 9th century. Chola and Chalukya inscriptions speak of their being frequently defeated, but we have no inscriptions of any 1 See below Book I. chap. v. p. 166. These very interesting structures were surveyed several years ago, but the results have not yet been fully published. The caves are Buddhist of an early type. 2 'South Indian Buddhist Antiquities,' by A. Rea, 1894 ; ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 323-329. 3 The Gudivada and Bhattiprolu stupas, were demolished by the Public Works officers about thirty-six years ago, for bricks to use in road-making, and the marbles of the latter were built into the walls and floor of the Vellatur sluice, or burnt for lime. ' Madras Government Orders,' No. 1620, of 1st Nov. 1878.