Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/116

 88 NORTHERN OR INDO-ARYAN STYLE. BOOK VI. Muhammadans, and the pillars and roofing-stones, with a few possible exceptions, were carved by them for the purposes for which they were applied. They may have used the stones of deserted monasteries, or other Buddhist or Hindu buildings, in the foundations or on their terraces, or for little detached pavilions ; but all the architecture, properly so called, is in a style invented, or at least introduced by the Pathans, and brought to perfection under Akbar. That the Moslims destroyed Hindu temples all over the south of Hindustan and in their raids into the Dekhan is certain, but it was not till the time of Aurangzib that any of their monarchs felt himself sufficiently powerful or was so bigoted as to dare the power and enmity of the Brahmans of Benares, by erecting a mosque on the site of one of their most sacred temples as an insult and a defiance to the Hindus. Even then, had such a temple as the great one at Bhuvane^war existed in Benares, every stone of which, from the ground to the kalas, is covered with carving, it seems remarkable that all these carved stones should be hid away and not one now to be found. But so it appears ; still we know historically that there were many temples in the city, and during the pre-Mughal period the city was often sacked, whilst the river courses have changed and probably buried what the Moslim failed to destroy. The rock at Gwaliar was one of the earliest conquests of the Moslims, and they held it more or less directly for five centuries. They built palaces and mosques within its precincts, yet the most conspicuous objects on the hill are Hindu temples, that were erected before they obtained possession of it. In like manner Chitor was thrice besieged and thrice sacked by the Muhammadans, but numerous buildings there are com- paratively intact. The instances of early temples discovered during the last forty years, however, bears some testimony to the numbers that must have existed all over the country prior to the Musalman conquests. These are very numerous in the west and south- west of Bengal, where the Aryan element in the population is a minimum. No temples are mentioned in the Vedas or the older Indian writings, and were not required for the simple quasi- domestic rites of their worship ; and so long as they remained pure perhaps no temples were built. With the introduction of the Brahmanic ritual they became a necessity. It is to be under- stood then that though we may use the term Indo-Aryan as the most convenient to describe and define the limits of the northern style, the name it is intended to convey is, that the style arose in a country which they once occupied, and in which they have left a strong impress of their superior mental power