ABSTRACT
FOR the Vedic cult neither permanent buildings nor representations of the gods are necessary. Did an architecture in durable materials, stone or brick, exist from the earliest days of Indian civilization properly so called? It is hardly likely, for no trace of any such architecture has survived, and the caves cut in the rock reveal imitation of wood in almost all their details (Pl. II, B). Save, therefore, for a few copies of foreign architecture, we may take it that all the ancient architecture of India, apart from the caves, was wooden. We know what it was like from about the second century B.C. onwards from the imitations of it in the rock-hewn caves, from the monuments represented in reliefs and paintings, and from the balustrades of the stūpas (Pl. II, A), which we shall discuss presently.
