I can almost fancy that the erection of this sun-temple was suggested
by the magnificent sunny prospect which its position commands. It
overlooks the finest view in Kashmir, and perhaps in the known world,
Beneath it lies the paradise of the East, with its sacred streams and
cedarn glens, its brown orchards and green fields, surrounded on all
sides by vast snowy mountains, whose lofty peaks seem to smile upon
the beautiful valley below. The vast extent of the scene makes it
sublime; for this magnificent view of Kashmir is no petty peep into
a half-mile glen, but the full display of a valley sixty miles in
breadth and upwards of a hundred miles in length, the whole of which
lies beneath "the ken of the wonderful Marttand."
The principal buildings that still exist in Kashmir are entirely
composed of a blue limestone, which is capable of taking the highest
polish - a property to which I mainly attribute the beautiful state
of preservation in which some of them at present exist.
Even at first sight one is immediately struck by the strong resemblance
which the Kashmirian colonnades bear to the classic peristyles of
Greece. Even the temples themselves, with their porches and pediments,
remind one more of Greece than of India; and it is difficult to
believe that a style of architecture which differs so much from all
Indian examples, and which has so much in common with those of Greece,
could have been indebted to chance alone for this striking resemblance.
One great similarity between the Kashmirian architecture and that of
the various Greek orders is its stereotyped style, which, during the
long flourishing period of several centuries, remained unchanged. In
this respect it is so widely different from the ever-varying forms
and plastic vagaries of the Hindu architecture that it is impossible
to conceive their evolution from a common origin.
I feel convinced myself that several of the Kashmirian forms, and many
of the details, were borrowed from the temples of the Kabulian Greeks,
while the arrangements of the interior and the relative proportions
of the different parts were of Hindu origin. Such, in fact, must
necessarily have been the case with imitations by Indian workmen,
which would naturally have been engrafted upon the indigenous
architecture. The general arrangements would still remain Indian,
while many of the details, and even some of the larger forms, might
be of foreign origin.
As a whole, I think that the Kashmirian architecture, with its
noble fluted pillars, its vast colonnades, its lofty pediments,
and its elegant trefoiled arches, is fully entitled to be classed
as a distinct style.
