Indian art in the Vedic period (1500-600 B.C.) is described
as a combination of the abstract philosophical concepts of
Aryan origin and the representational, even naturalistic
trends of Dravidian civilization.
The conjectural reconstruction of the art of this period is
based on the many references to actual techniques and
works of sculpture and architecture in the Vedic hymns,
which were composed sometime between 1500 and 800
B.C.
With respect to fundamental concept of Indian art, the
actual historical consideration of the art of India begins
with the Indus valley and the Vedic period.
• The Vedic period is referred to the time span
between the end of the Indus Valley Civilisation and
the rise of the first Indian empire under the Mauryas.
• The Dravidians were displaced by the Aryan invaders
during the third century B.C.
• Although the Aryans enforced their philosophical and
social ideals on India and penetrated the entire fabric
of Indian civilisation with such forms as the caste
system.
• The Aryans were inexorably absorbed into the Indian
population and the main stream of Indian civilisation.
The Aryans invaders were agricultural nomads.
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Considering the background of these agricultural nomadic invaders, it is evident that the
architecture of the Vedic Period was neither monumental nor permanent nor concentrated in
urban development.
With the disappearance of the Indus valley culture and its cities, the new Indo-Aryan
population was largely distributed in small settlements located in the plains and forests.
The building materials that they used were the ones most readily obtainable for constructing
shelters like wood, bamboo, thatch, and, probably only later, brick. Buildings of this kind were
expected from people without any kind of tradition of colossal architecture.
But the methods of construction in thatch and bamboo were actually practiced by the
Dravidians long before the intrusion of the northern invaders.
The Dravidian style of architecture comprised of pyramid shaped temples which are
dependent on intricate carved stone in order to generate a step design consisting of several
statues of deities, dancers, kings and warriors.
The architecture of the Vedic period encompasses huts of round and square shape, and also
some tower like structures.
The resemblance of these descriptions to the conical huts of the primitive Toda tribes in
South India today suggests that these forms were of Dravidian rather than Aryan origin.
Among the materials that were used there is mention of metals, such as tin, lead, and silver,
as well as copper and iron, specified in the later Vedic books, and there are also references to
woven stuffs and ritual vessels.
The cities of the Vedic period were rectangular in arrangement and divided into four quarters
by two main roads intersecting at right angles, each leading to a city gate.
One of these quarters enclosed the fortress and another part was the suburban area. A third
quarter was set aside for the merchants and the last for tradesmen who could exhibit their
merchandise.
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In the Vedas there is reference of fire alters and sacrificial halls. In the epics, Ramayana and
Mahabharata there are indication of shrines and assembly halls.
It is significant to note that stone is only occasionally referred to as a building material. The
Ramayana and the Mahabharata refers to big painted halls, so there might have been the
convention of wall paintings in those times.
Later features of Hindu and Buddhist architecture as the horseshoe-shaped chaitya arch
presumably had their origin in the Vedic Period.
One of the most important architectural developments of the Vedic Period was the layout of
the Indo-Aryan village. This was the plan that, by reason both of its commodity and specific
metaphysical implications, has survived in countless arrangements in the architecture of
Hinduism and Buddhism.
This characteristic plan was derived from the fortified camps of the Aryan invaders. It was a
rectangle with its sides oriented to the four quarters and intersected by two avenues
terminating in four gateways.
The plan was intended as a kind of microcosm, with the five divisions of the village
corresponding to the five elements of the universe, and each of the gateways dedicated to
one of the four Vedic deities typifying the positions of the sun in its course through the
heavens.
These village plans also included a broad path girdling the buildings within the outer walls
which the householders circumambulated with recitations to ensure the favour of the gods.
This feature, together with the metaphysical symbolism attached to the gateways, is
perpetuated in the plan and ritual of the Buddhist Stupa.
The regularity of these early plans, based on straight intersecting avenues, is possibly a
survival of the systematic arrangements of the Indus cities adapted to the metaphysical and
architectural needs of the new Aryan civilisation.
• In the southern part of India a number of rock- cut tombs found at Mennapuram
and Kolikode in Malabar owe heir origin in the Vedic period. They have been
described as hollow stupas, since they are domed chambers with a monolithic
stone column at the centre.
• Intended for the burial of Aryan chieftains, these caves are presumably
translations into stone of Vedic round huts of wood or thatch. The chief
importance of the Vedic Period lies in the development of architecture as a
science and the invention of types that survive in later Hindu and Buddhist
architecture.
• Various remains of undetermined antiquity, generally classified as Neolithic or
prehistoric, may belong to the Vedic Period, for example, the cromlechs found at
Amravati in southern India, erected around burial-places, and interesting as
possible prototypes for the Buddhist railing or vedika.
• In later years the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, much of Buddhist architecture,
were directly influenced by the simple village structures of the Aryan villages.
The remarkable part of the art during the Vedic period is that these
masterpieces of world architecture evolved from people of nomadic
background.