AR 106 HINDU AND BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE

Jan – May 2016

Mrs. G.SANGEETHA B.ARCH. (NIT Trichy), M.TECH. (IIT Madras)

Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture
National Institute of Technology Trichirappalli 1
Indus Valley Civilization
• The Indus Valley civilization
flourished around 3,300 B.C. in
the western part of South Asia, in
what today is Pakistan and
western India.

• It is often referred to as Harappan

Civilization after its first
discovered city, Harappa.
Comparative Timeline
Harappan Society

 Dravidian people built a complex society that dominated the

Indus River Valley until its decline after 1900 B.C - 500 miles
along the river valley
 The Agricultural surplus of the Indus fed two large cities,
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
 Harappa – the name derived from one of its major city;
 Mohenjo Daro “city of the dead,” was another large city.
• Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
• surrounded by smaller cities, towns, and villages
• one situated in the north
• one situated in the south
 The area is around the size of England, France and Spain
combined.

 Much of modern-day Pakistan and a large part of Northern

India- a territory about 1.3 million square meters (502,000
square miles) and this considerably larger than either
Mesopotamian or Egyptian society - 10-20 times larger than
Mesopotamia or Egypt
Indus valley civilization
 7000 B.C.E. - 2500 B.C.E. migrations and development of
agriculture and farming villages along the Indus river
 2500 - 2000 B.C.E. Harappan civilization of planned cities
developed. Grid system of brick structures in 2 main sites:
Harappa and Mohenjo - Daro
 Planned urbanization started
 The city was designed on mud brick platforms to protect
against flood waters
 Brick walls protect the city and its citadel (central buildings
like stupa)
 Streets were designed in 30 foot wide grid system
 Houses with bathrooms separated by streets with sewage
drainage system were built.
The Harappan Civilization

3300 BC - 2400 BCE

 1. Street Planning
2. Granary
3. Great Bath

3 interesting aspects of
Harappan Civilization
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
 No evidence survives concerning the Harappan political
system.
 No evidence of a royal or imperial authority
 It is possible, like the early Sumerian city-states, the Harappan
cities were economic and political centers for their own
regions
 Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had city walls, a fortified
citadel, and a large granary
 Both featured marketplaces, temples, public buildings,
extensive residential districts, and broad grid streets
 Houses with bathrooms separated by streets with sewage
drainage system
Cities
The similarities in plan and construction between Mohenjo-Daro and
Harappa indicate that they were part of a unified government with extreme
organization.

• Both cities were constructed of the same type and shape of bricks.

• The two cities may have existed simultaneously and their sizes suggest
that they served as capitals of their provinces.

• In contrast to other civilizations, burials found from these cities are not
elaborate; they are more simplistic and contain few material goods.

• Remains of palaces or temples in the cities have not been found.

• No hard evidence exists indicating military activity, though the cities

did contain fortifications and artifacts such as copper and bronze knives,
spears, and arrowheads were recovered.
 Plan of Harappa
Architecture and Town Planning

• Excavations show a degree of urban planning

which the Romans achieved only later, after a
gap of 2500 years.

The twin cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa

formed the hub of the civilization.

• Both cities were a mile square, with defensive

outer walls.
• An orthogonal street layout was oriented
toward the cardinal directions.
• The street layout shows an understanding of
the basic principles of traffic, with rounded
corners to allow the turning of carts easily.
• These streets divided the city into 12 blocks.

• Except for the west-central blocks, the basic

unit of city planning was the individual
house.
The central-western blocks were reserved for public architecture.
• The city was built on a grid pattern in rectangular block;
• They were built on a common plan
• a grid: always NS and EW axes

• Buildings were made of standard size mud or baked bricks; had

sewage and drainage systems and large streets

• Residence house constructed around the courtyard; up to three

stories (estimates had 35,000 inhabitants; located on the East
side of the city

• Granaries and citadel on the West side

• Baths: provided water for residences or may have been used for
general bathing and ritual ceremonies (made of brick and sealed
with bitumen)
Aerial View of Mohenjo-Daro
Wide View, Mohenjo-Daro
The Great Bath, Mohenjo-Daro
The Great Bath
• The "great bath" is the earliest public water tank.
• The tank measures approximately 12 meters north-
south and 7 meters wide, with a maximum depth of
2.4 meters.
• Two staircases lead down into the tank from the north
and south and small sockets at the edges of the stairs
are thought to have held wooden planks or treads.
• At the foot of the stairs is a small ledge with a brick
edging that extends the entire width of the pool.
The Great Bath
Public Well, Harappa
Streets
• At Mohenjo-Daro narrow streets
and alleyways are off of the
major streets, leading into more
private neighborhoods.
• Many of the brick houses were
two stories high, with thick
walls and high ceilings to keep
the rooms cool in the hot
summer months.
• very densely populated
• Every house is laid out the same
manner
Bath Area, Mohenjo-Daro Well, Mohenjo-Daro
Wells
• Private wells were rebuilt over
many generations for large
households and neighborhoods.

• This well in DK G area at

Mohenjo-daro stands like a
chimney because all of the
surrounding earth has been
removed by excavation.
Public Wells
• A large public well and public bathing platforms were found in
the southern part of Mound AB at Harappa.
• These public bathing areas may also have been used for
washing clothes as is common in many traditional cities in
Pakistan and India today.
Granary, Mohenjo-Daro
Granary
• The "granary" of Harappa is found on Mound F.

• It is a brick structure that was built on a massive brick

foundation over 45 meters north-south and 45 meters east-west.
•
• Two rows of six rooms that appear to be foundations are
arranged along a central passageway that is about 7 meters wide
and partly paved with baked bricks.

• Each room measures 15.2 by 6.1 meters and has three walls
with air space between them.
The Harappan house is an amazing example of a
native people, without the benefit of technology, adapting to local
conditions and intuitively producing an architecture eminently
suited to the climate.

• The house was planned as a series of rooms opening on to a

central courtyard.

• This courtyard served the multiple functions of lighting the

rooms, acting as a heat absorber in summer and radiator in
winter, as well as providing an open space inside for community
activities.

• There were no openings toward the main street, thus ensuring

privacy for the residents.

• The only openings in the houses are rather small - this prevented
the hot summer sun heating the insides of the houses.

An advanced drainage system is also in evidence.

• Drains started from the bathrooms of the houses and joined the
main sewer in the street, which was covered by brick slabs or
corbelled brick arches, depending on its width.
Harappa: Mound E and ET
• Inside the city is an area that has been identified as a crafts
quarter.
• Large quantities of manufacturing debris have been found in
this area indicating the presence of workshops for making stone
beads, shell ornaments, glazed faience ornaments, stone tools
and possibly even gold working.
Mound E Gateway Artists Conception
Drain, Harappa Pottery, Mohenjo-Daro
Legacy and decline
• It is unfortunate that none of the structures of the Indus Valley civilization survive intact today.

• Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Harappan people left nothing monumental, like the pyramids
or ziggurats, for posterity to marvel at.

• The planning principles and response of the architecture to climate are a lesson to be learnt.
• Evidence of decline appears between 2000 - 1750 B.C.E.
• Environmental factors like floods, soil erosion, earthquakes may explain it
• Migratory Aryans invade slowly to dominate
• Evidence to suggest they adopt Harappan ideas of farming and religion which helps to establish a
class system (caste system) based on views of elitism
• Harappan deities and religious beliefs intrigued migrants to India and found a new home in new
societies.
• During 2000 B.C.E., bands of foreigners filtered into the Indian Subcontinent and settled
throughout the Indus Valley and beyond.
• Most prominent were nomadic and pastoral peoples speaking an Indo-European languages who
called themselves Aryans or “Noble People”.
The Vedic Age
 Vedic Age 1500 BC – 500 BC

The End of Harappa

• The nomads that streamed in from the Northwest towards the middle of the second
millennium B.C. overwhelmed the indigenous people of the subcontinent with their
superior military technology.
• The Indus Valley Civilization, weakened from generations of fighting the river floods,
constantly rebuilding their cities, lacked the moral will to put up much resistance.
• In short order the magnificent cities were emptied of all population, and the Dasyus, as
the Aryan invaders migrated and moved further south into peninsular India.
• When the Aryans entered India, they practiced a limited amount of agriculture, but
they depended much more heavily on a pastoral economy.
• Cattle became the principal measure of wealth in early Aryan Society.
• The early Aryans did not use writing but they composed numerous poems and songs.
Their sacred language was Sanskrit.
• The earliest of these orally transmitted works were the Vedas, which were collections
of songs, prayers, and rituals honoring Aryan gods.
• The earliest was the Rig Veda, a collection of 1,028 hymns
Aryan Migration
• The Aryans did not settle into the well-planned cities of the Harappan
culture, and instead preferred to clear forests around the riverbanks of the
Gangetic plain and settle in small villages.
• No architectural examples of this period are surviving.
• The Aryans built no colossal monuments.
• It was early Aryan architectural forms that were translated into the
architecture of India for thousands of years. The caves of Ajanta and
Ellora, much of Buddhist architecture, were directly influenced by the
simple village structures of the Aryan villages.
• The great epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, vividly picture
village and town life during Aryavrata, or the Aryan age.
• In addition, carvings on the Stupas at Barhut and Sanchi, which depict
Aryan village life vividly
• Upon coming to India, the settlers gave up their totally
nomadic existence and became part-agriculturalists.

• This provided the impetus to build villages, the basic unit of

which was the hut.

• Wood was the prime building material taken from the

forests
• The Aryan hut, in its most basic shape, was circular in plan,
with a thatched roof over a bamboo network of ribs.
• This was later elongated to become rectangular in plan,
with roofing of bamboo which was curved in the shape of a
barrel.
• Clusters of these huts formed a courtyard, much like huts in
Indian villages even today.
• The better-off citizens roofed them with planks of wood or
tiles, and used unbaked bricks for the walls.
• To maintain the barrel shape of the roof, a thong or string,
perhaps of animal hide, was stretched across the end of the
bamboo.
• For protection against wild animals, a palisade fence of wood and bamboo
surrounded the whole settlement.
• This fence was made of upright posts of bamboo with horizontal members
threaded into holes in posts.
• At one point, the fence was extended forward to form a sort of gate.
• These forms - the barrel vaulted roof, the tie-cord, and the palisade fence and
railing, formed important motifs for future Indian Architecture.
• Huts in modern Orissa are still carrying traces of this influence, with symbolism
dating back to Vedic times.

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

City-states and timber construction

• Groups of small villages banded together, and small 'cities' began to take shape.
• A fence wall inevitably protected these and the buildings within were also made
almost entirely of wood.
• The Vedic carpenters developed skill in timber construction of a very high standard.
• Later this technique was practiced in stone too.
• In general, the cities of the Vedic period were rectangular in plan and divided into
four quarters by two main thoroughfares intersecting at right angles, each leading to
a city gate.
• One of these quarters contained the citadel and another housed the residential area.
• A third quarter was reserved for the merchants, and the last for tradesmen who
could display their wares.
• From these modest beginnings, early Hindu architecture gradually metamorphosed
into the magnificent Buddhist stupas and the rock-cut caves at Ajanta.