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    Arch

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    Diya Banerjee
    The document discusses the development of arched construction in India over 3000 years, from pre-Islamic to early Islamic periods. It challenges the commonly held belief that true arches were introduced by Islamic invaders in the 11th century. Earlier examples of arched or vaulted structures in India included corbelled arches in Harappa and barrel vaulted wooden roofs in Vedic villages. During the early Islamic period, arches were sometimes constructed to look like true arches for design purposes, before true arches became established in the 13th century. The document provides a chronological narrative to understand how arched construction evolved as a system throughout Indian history.

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    Arch

    Uploaded by

    Diya Banerjee
    26 views5 pages
    The document discusses the development of arched construction in India over 3000 years, from pre-Islamic to early Islamic periods. It challenges the commonly held belief that true arches were introduced by Islamic invaders in the 11th century. Earlier examples of arched or vaulted structures in India included corbelled arches in Harappa and barrel vaulted wooden roofs in Vedic villages. During the early Islamic period, arches were sometimes constructed to look like true arches for design purposes, before true arches became established in the 13th century. The document provides a chronological narrative to understand how arched construction evolved as a system throughout Indian history.

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    The document discusses the development of arched construction in India over 3000 years, from pre-Islamic to early Islamic periods. It challenges the commonly held belief that true arches were introduced by Islamic invaders in the 11th century. Earlier examples of arched or vaulted structures in India included corbelled arches in Harappa and barrel vaulted wooden roofs in Vedic villages. During the early Islamic period, arches were sometimes constructed to look like true arches for design purposes, before true arches became established in the 13th century. The document provides a chronological narrative to understand how arched construction evolved as a system throughout Indian history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    26 views5 pages

    Arch

    Uploaded by

    Diya Banerjee
    The document discusses the development of arched construction in India over 3000 years, from pre-Islamic to early Islamic periods. It challenges the commonly held belief that true arches were introduced by Islamic invaders in the 11th century. Earlier examples of arched or vaulted structures in India included corbelled arches in Harappa and barrel vaulted wooden roofs in Vedic villages. During the early Islamic period, arches were sometimes constructed to look like true arches for design purposes, before true arches became established in the 13th century. The document provides a chronological narrative to understand how arched construction evolved as a system throughout Indian history.

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    You are on page 1of 5

    Breaking down the connection between Religion and Arcuated

    Construction in India
    By Diya Banerjee

    Methodology: Comparison between historic fact and commonly believed narrative which is
    contradictory to the former and coming up with a narrative establishing the chronological
    continuity.

    As we all know, Arch, as a construction technique was not known to Indians in its true form till early
    medieval period. The technique of constructing a true arch came to India with Islamic invasion in 10-
    11th Century and eventually it flourished into a much decorative form. This historical fact, however,
    is being challenged in recent years, mostly in Social media, by people with less knowledge and more
    religious zeal. The argument, however, is old. We had Chaitya ‘Arches’, which resembles Horse-shoe
    shaped arch, in our country long before the Islamic invasion. So, the knowledge of ‘Arch’ building
    must have been existed since then.

    The reason for choosing a narrative about a structural system instead of one isolated building for
    this paper is, an incident in which I was questioned and countered to ‘prove’ that Arch was really a
    contribution of Islamic world. At that point, I truly had felt the need of a narrative which will be
    easily understood by layman and students alike. So here it goes, it is a narrative regarding Arcuated
    construction system in India, before and after Islamic invasion.

    First, let us understand what an Arch is and what are the different types.

    Arch. Noun\ ˈärch \

    Definition of arch:

    1. a typically curved structural member spanning an opening and serving as a support (as for
    the wall or other weight above the opening)

    (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arch)

    Let us also understand how Arch functions as a structural system and why it is unique.
    Fundamentally, in an Arcuated construction the structure's entire tensile stress caused by the
    weight of the superstructure are transformed into compressive stress.

    Why was this system developed? As all of us are aware of,


    the simplest and the commonest construction system
    across the ancient world was ‘Post and Lintel’ or
    trabeated system. But the major downside that it had
    was, larger the span, thicker became the lintel. And it
    reached its breaking point soon because of its sheer dead
    weight. Therefore, to achieve a longer span, another
    system was needed. Since lintels broke down under

    Page | 1
    Diya Banerjee
    tensile stress, the new system countered it with total compression.

    Predecessor of the true arcuated system: In ancient world, almost all the civilizations had
    discovered a system which was more efficient in taking the load in longer span than the post and
    lintel system. This method is known as Corbelling. Indus-Saraswati Civilisation, Ancient Mayans,
    Etruscans all were aware of this technique. But this was not a ‘True’ arch, since it didn’t comply with
    the structural definition of an Arch.

    Example of Arches in India before the introduction of


    [Image courtesy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbel_arch]
    Figure 1: A Corebelled Arch
    True Arch :

    1. Corbelled Arches in Harappa : Many large covered drains


    were constructed with corbelled arches. These drains ran
    beneath streets and lanes and were large enough for
    workmen to enter and clear any obstruction.
    2. Barrel Vaulted Wooden roofs in Vedic villages and towns :
    As per the eminent Architectural historian Percy Brown, Vedic
    residential units initially were circular in plan. The roofs were
    thatched with leaves. But it was difficult to bunch them in a
    group to form a multi-roomed house, so the plan got
    modified to an oval and then eventually became a rectangle
    with a barrel-vaulted roof. Structural component of this roof
    was made of bent bamboo or timber. Both ends of the ‘Arch’ was tied by a chord, much like
    a bow. So the member which looks like an ‘Arch’, is actually under tensile stress. So
    categorically, though it might appear to look like an arch, it is not one. This kind of vaulted
    structure then had liner cross members tied with them and then thatched. As all of them
    were constructed with perishable materials, none of these examples survive today. But we
    still have the evidence of their existence by two means A. The reliefs on contemporary stone
    structures, . Eg. the reliefs on the Toranas of Sanchi Stupa B. The stone Constructions of
    that era which imitated the wooden prototypes. Eg. the rock-cut Chaityagrihas like Karle and
    Bhaja.

    Bent Bamboo/ timber member

    Tensile stress

    Figure 2: Structural system of rectangular vedic huts

    Image source: Indian architecture: (Buddhist and Hindu


    periods) by Brown, Percy,1959

    Page | 2
    Diya Banerjee
    Image 2 : Karla Caves, Imitation of wooden barrel vault
    Image 1 : Vedic townscape on Sanchi Stupa Torana
    3. The Kala-Makara Torana of Hindu temples and the Bell-and-Garland motif of Jain Temple
    entrances :
    Since Hindu/ Jain construction techniques followed the trabeated method, it was imperative
    that to reduce the span they needed brackets. These brackets took different decorative
    forms in different temples. Hindu temples almost always had two ‘Makaras’ or Mythical
    beings from whose mouth the brackets appeared and Jain temples usually followed an
    alternate course of temple bell and garland.

    Image 3 & 4 : Bell and garland brackets

    Image 5 & 6 : Ornate brackets coming out of mouth of Makara

    4. Corbelled arches which looked like a true arch : In the early days of Islamic invasion, Arches
    were made to look like a true arch to fulfill the design requirement. We see this in all the
    early Islamic constructions like – Adhai-din-ka jhopda, Qwuaat-ul-Islam mosque, Iltutmish
    Tomb etc. True arch was constructed for the first time in 1287 in the tomb of Ghiyasuddin
    Balban, a ruler of the slave dynasty.

    Page | 3
    Diya Banerjee
    Figure 3: Corbelled Arch vs. True Arch [Image courtesy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbel_arch]

    Image 7: Corbelled arch at Sultan Garhi, with the Image 8: 1st true arch construction at Balban’s tomb, Circa 1287
    inside chiselled out to give an impression of true arch
    As a researcher, this exploration has helped myself
    establish a chronological understanding of the arcuated construction system in India. This research
    spans over a time period of 3000 years, which, pedagogically, is always divided in multiple semesters
    (Harappa – Ancient Civilisations, Chaityagriha : Hindu and Buddhist Architecture and early mosques
    in Indo-islamic architecture). The knowledge flow, thus, also becomes fragmented. This narrative
    was an initiative to create a continuity in terms of understanding the development of a particular
    construction system throughout the history.

    Page | 4
    Diya Banerjee
    References

    1. Brown, Percy. 1950. Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu)Volume 1. D.B. Taraporevala,

    2. Brown, Percy. 1959. Indian Architecture (Islamic)Volume 2. D.B. Taraporevala,

    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbel_arch

    4. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arch

    Page | 5
    Diya Banerjee

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