Art and Architecture: North India and South India

Abstract

The centuries between the eighth and the thirteenth stand out rather prominently from the point of view of the making of cultural traditions in India. The most arresting feature of these traditions is regionalism, which gets reflected in every sphere, whether it be the formation of political power or the development of arts or the transformations in languages and literature or even religious manifestations. In very general terms, the emergence of regional cultural units such as Andhra, Assam, Bengal, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, etc. was the outcome of significant material changes. The pace of agrarian changes and the developments in the non-agrarian sector were setting the tone of feudal socio-economic formation. The political structure was deeply affected by these developments. It should, not, therefore, surprise us if the cultural ethos too got permeated by similar strains. The Mudrarakshasa, a play written in Sanskrit by Vishakhadatta and generally ascribed to the fifth century, speaks of different regions whose inhabitants differ in customs, clothing and language. The identity of some kind of sub-national groups is recognized by the Chinese pilgrim Hieun-Tsang who visited India in the first half of the seventh century and mentions several nationalities. The Kuvalayamala, a Jain text of the eighth century and largely concerned with western India, notes the existence of 18 major nationalities and describes the anthropological character of sixteen peoples, pointing out their psychological features and citing the examples of their language. The Brahma Vaivarta Purana, ascribed to the thirteenth century Bengal explicates deshabheda — differences based on regions/territories. This feature is reflected in art and architecture as well. We see the emergence of various regional traditions and it was during this time that different architectural languages such as Nagara, Dravida and Vesara matured. In this research article begin survey by looking at the various types of architectural styles and art traditions.