the travels of the brick

1. The Travels of the Brick
Sudarshan Raj Tiwari
Professor of Architecture
In our area, fired bricks were first used by the Indus valley civilization. It was a
civilization of the Sakas and pre-dated the arrival of the Aryans. Dating from about 4000
BC ca., this civilization was advanced enough to use alphabets and writing. As yet
undeciphered, the style and maturity of writing certainly puts them ahead of Kish near
Babylon, where the alphabet was also in use about the same time. They excelled in
pottery, brick making, carpentry, weaving and ivory work. They had established
themselves as a successful mercantile economy. It was expressed physically in brick
architecture and planned townships of superb quality. Since the past century,
archaeological excavations have traced ruins of many towns, of which Mohenjodaro,
Harappa and Lothal appear as the main centers.
Mohenzodaro is one mile square in area and is planned in grid iron pattern with two
streets running east-west and three streets north-south diving the city in twelve quarters
of equal size. The streets are wide and the whole town walled in. The middle quarter on
the west edge was raised to a height of about fifty feet to form the plinth for central
structures such as the ‘palace’, water tank, granary, flour mill etc. All the other quarters
are used for residential accomodation of the residents.
Done entirely in brick (size: 12x12x27 cm) and timber, the private houses were served
with well water and the whole town was provided with a drainage system of superb
quality. The houses were designed with rooms placed around a courtyard and were
windowless on the outside.
Fired Brick dies at the hands of the Aryans
Aryans, as they were nomadic, perceived cities and bricks as a nuisance and attached no
importance to them. Naturally, the art of making bricks and the science of planning towns
died at the hands of the nomads. Almost a millenium later, they were to rediscover both
on their own in the Indo-Gangatic plains. On the basis of literary sources and evidence of
relief carvings from Sanchi and Bahrut, one can see that the Aryans started back from
natural state and started building with bamboo, wood and thatch.
Aryans themselves did not use these towns and when the Greeks came, Aristobolus was
to observe “the remains of over a thousand towns and villages once full of men”i
. Vedic
building civilization was, thus, a product of the carpenter rather than a mason. One
thousand years later, Maha-Govinda, the architect, started using grid iron street layout as
villages grew into larger towns demanding planning. In Kausambi, near Allahabad, in the
fifth century BC, the use of huge bricks (48x30x5 cm) is observed for the first time again.
But again by the time of Rajgir, the capital of Magadha, we find the use of stone
masonry.

2. The long travels:
But the religious ideology, knowledge of brick, water supply and drainage system must
have accompanied the vanquished, as they made their way into the wilderness. For these
people used to living in the fertile valleys with pliable mud, the new environs of the high
hills to the north and east and to the south were anything but friendly. The mountainous
country had hardly any mud suitable for making bricks. Brick architecture was eclipsed
from the Indian Sub-continent for quite some time. Water supply and drainage was not
always a problem in the new areas and the application of this knowledge may have been
quite unnecessary also. Centuries later we find that the brick was making a comeback.
Along with this, the water system and the tank also show up.
The Sakyas of Kapilvastu appear as the next brick building culture. From the Indus
Valley to Kapilvastu, the distance of time is about 2000 years. The Sakyas were distanced
by about 1000 years from the Sakas. Dated from sixth century B
C onwards, the town of
Kapilavastu, its buildings, ramparts and the brick tumuli come as if the brick maker and
the brick layer made the main body of builders. The recent archaeological excavations at
Mayadevi temple site at Lumbini, the birth place of Lord Buddha, has yielded a brick
vedi and foundation remains of a large ‘Brikshya-Griha’ temple datable prior to third
century BCii
. It is also in Pali literature, such as Jataka and Mahavamsa, that we find
mention of itthaka-vaddhaki, the brick-layer, as an important member of the building
group. In these very literatures, we find mention of the eighteen traditional crafts related
to buildingiii
. In about second century BC, brick constructions were already at an
advanced state in Kathmandu as evidenced by the archeological finds at Satya Narayana
at Hadigaon. By any logic, this period is prior to the Lichchhavis coming into
Kathmandu. An inscription of Lichchhavi King Basantadeva from Thankot mentions the
people with eighteen craft specialization (Astadasa prakritin). These people were living
at Jolpringga, a pre-Lichchhavi settlement renamed as Jayapallikagrama by himselfiv
.
Bricks start showing in the Vindhyachal area in India a bit later. Asokan stupa at Sanchi
was originally built in brick about the middle of the third century BC. At the Vishnu
temple of Besnagar, dated about 150 BC, use of brick in lime mortar has been brought
out by archaeologists. The excellence of brickwork here testifies that it was the
handiwork of brick layers of long experience. Hindu architecture appears to have had
only a short brick period at Beshnagar. At Ghantasala, a stupa in brick was constructed
around the first century AD. Besnagar is close to Sanchi and was the capital of the Sunga
kingdom. The first of the Buddhist Chaityas to be built in brick is a post-Mauryan
example from Ter south of the Vindhyachal mountain. Bricks made a come-back in a big
way, in the Gangatic plains, only in the fourth-fifth century AD with the great Buddhist
architecture at Bodh Gaya and Nalanda.
Arrival to Aluvial lands and resurgence of Brick:
From the above enquiry, it is evident that brick reappeared first at Kapilavastu, Besnagar,
Kathmandu and Ter. What is interesting is that they all are advanced brickwork and show

3. no evidence of gradual development. All these places are located outside of the Gangatic
plains. They are also areas where the Sakas moved to following the Aryan unslaught.
Kapilavastu was the area of the Sakyas. The Sakyas, Koliyas, Mallas of Buddha’s time,
called ‘bratya’ by Manusmriti, must also have belonged to the group of the Sakas,
possibly the Khasas. Besnagar and Ter fall in the region occupied by the Odras and the
Pallavas, other tribes belonging to the Saka group. Kathmandu had a prolonged rule of
the Kiratas, another member of the Saka community. The Pallavas, the Sakyas and the
Kiratas had the guild (Seni) of traditional craftsmen.
It can thus be concluded that brick had remained a preserve of the Sakas all throughout
and they revived it wherever the geology of the new areas permitted. The knowledge of
brick had only traveled out of the Indus Valley into newer areas.
This very association of the brick with the Sakas must have encouraged Mauryan Ashok
and the Guptas to think in stone. Brick as a material of construction appears associated
with the sect ideology for a long period.
In their long travels, Sakas came across alluvial lands at only a few places and
Kathmandu valley was one of them. It is here that they used the art and craft of brick
making to a maximum.
References to worship of divinity images in Hinduism starts with Panini’s writings dated
to around fourth century BCv
. The oldest surviving example of anthropometric temple
form in India is the Vishnu temple of Besnagar dated to about 150 BC. Early Buddhist
relief carvings show proto-shrines for Naga worship. The fall of the Buddhist Empire of
the Mauryas coincides with a vigorous development of anthropometric temple in
Hinduism. Prior to that the Aryans were content with open shrines and altars.
It must be the Kiratas, who initiated the brick and wood temple form as the structure for a
temple became necessary. This can be inferred from the nature of early temples of the
Lichchhavis in stone. The early Lichchhavi royal temples were done in stone and appear
quite primitive. The extant examples are about one meter cube with a cuboid plinth. A
single slab of stone forms the roof and has a finial structure over. A few surviving
examples of these temples can be seen at Banepa, Pashupatinath, etc. Hadigaon has some
plinth remains of similar temples. The shape of columns, with a concave cut on the
inside, indicate that most of these temples were erected for Siva linga. Inscriptions also
indicate that temple structures were erected in the shape of ‘Srimatsamsthana’ and
‘Laxmibat’ for Siva and Vishnuvi
. We are not able to interpret these forms, which does
not appear so named in the Vastusastras. An inscription of Amshuverma mentions a
temple called ‘Matindevadula’vii
, which was built with bricks and timber. Since this is a
temple of the Mother Goddesses (Matrinam = mothers), we may surmise that temples
done in brick and wood were used mostly to house non-Lichchhavi images and most
probably belonged to the Kiratas.

4. The settlements in Kathmandu also use water tanks to r
eplenish the ground water as well
as stone water conduits. The towns are also characterized with well thought out drainage
and supply canal systems. In the remains of the Pallava city of Mahabalipurum also, the
use of the central water tank and the drainage system is observed. They also used brick
and timber in common buildings.
The evidence of the brick, the water tank and the drainage system, along with the
terracotta bulls, surely support strongly the suggestion being made here that people of the
Indus Valley reached to Kathmandu as Kiratas. Helped by a friendly geology, they
relived their knowledge prior to the arrival of the Lichchhavis. The building support
group of the Lichchhavis must also have been the Kirata Astadasa Prakritin, the eighteen
craft guild of the Kiratas. Their different status was finally to be recognised by Jayasthiti
Malla in the mid-Malla era.
Three Bricks for this world and next!
Life for the Sakas may not have begun at Mohenjordaro. It certainly did not end there for
them as a community of civilized builders. Individuals were however mortal and birth
and death were not to be escaped. Through imagining gods, who did not die a mortal’s
death or through the imagined birth and rebirth of soul or such other schemes, allowed by
his thinking ability, they wished and thought to be immortal civilizations. Rituals and
rites associated with birth and death have, therefore, been a matter of grave enquiry by
anthropologists.
As the new born boy gets to be six or eight month (and for girls it is after five or seven
months), a ritual called Machajankoviii
is held. This is usual ritual for most of the Non-
Mongol Nepalese. This is a rite of initiation to rice. At the end of the ceremony the
initiated child is made to touch an object of choice. What he/she chooses is believed to
indicate the main professional activity in his/her grown up life. The articles of choice,
such as gold ornament, book, pen, paddy, are usual but in the ceremonial package of the
Newars, particularly the Jyapus, the choice also includes soil and brick. As paddy
symbolizes agricultural profession, soil and brick respectively symbolize pottery and
brick making. The importance of the trades of the Maharjan and Dongol (agriculture)
and of Prajapati (pottery and brick making) and Awales (tile making and laying) in the
community is highlighted by this practice. It may be added here that these are exclusive
family trades and traditions and other Newars would not anyway take up such trades. As
we have already seen that the family specialization in the eighteen trades is at least a two-
thousands-year old tradition, the others only appear to be aping the Jyapu and the Kumah.
Brick appears again significantly in death rituals. As the dead body of the Newars is
taken for cremation, on way out of the house and in the first crossroad along the route,
three bricks are ritually laid there before the dead body is taken past it. The belief behind

5. this ritual is that the three bricks are taken for use by the dead person to build his/her
house in the next world/life.
Indeed bricks are needed not just for the mortals. In the Jyapu, Awale and Kumah
traditions, a very important secret worship, Gaidupujaix
, is held annually on Yomari
Punhi, Margasirsa Sukla Purnima according to lunar calendar. Performed by an assembly
of two members from each local tole, a neighbourhood unit, forming a Guthix
, the rituals
last four days and four nights. The closing ritual requires the members of the Guthi to
perform a rite of ritually consigning the godly spirit they worshipped for the whole time
to flames of straw. And here too the three bricks are offered along with two-wicked light,
one wick to show the path in this world and the second wick lighting towards the next
world. The bricks are for use of Mahasura, Kayesura and other gods who depart to their
own world until next year when a Dongolxi
will call the spirit again to come into the
human body of the head of the Guthi, a Maharjan.
Brick is thus seen recurring in their life cycle rituals of the Jyapus and Prajapatis and is
not just a matter of their family trade. Seemingly, man’s travel in life cannot be complete
without bricks. At least not of Maharjan, Dongol and Prajapati.
i
As quoted by Percy Brown, Indian Architecture, pp. 2.
ii
See my article “Recent Discoveries and Its Implications on History of Building at Lumbini”, Tribhuvan
University Journal, Vol. XIX, June 1996.
iii
See Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Essays in Early Indian Architecture, for details.
iv
Inscription at Thankot dated AD 507. It also mentions some Kirati names for their headmen.
v
Krishna Deva, Temples of India.
vi
See Inscriptions no III, IV, V. D. R. Regmi, Inscriptions of Ancient Nepal.
vii
SeeInscription no LXXVI. D. R. Regmi, Inscriptions of Ancient Nepal.
viii
A similar ritual, called ‘pasne’, is performed by the Aryan group also, but brick is not an item shown to
the child.
ix
According to Kul Chandra Koirala, “Gaindu is not a classical Vedic god but a animal-sacrifice accepting
representation of Rudra.” See Bhagavan Sripashupatinath, pp. 109.
x
Called Chya-Guthi (eight membered group) in Hadigaon because of its four toles. The Guthi is wholly
Maharjan and Dongol and excludes Prajapati.
xi
Cf. Dangre (> Dangora > Dangola > Dongol ?) in Masto traditions of Jumla.