Rotunda (architecture)
A rotunda (from Latin rotundus) is any roofed building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building (a famous example being the one below the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.). The Pantheon in Rome is perhaps the most famous, and is the most influential rotunda. A band rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome.
Some of the earliest free-standing temples in India are thought to have been of a circular type, as the Buddhist Bairat Temple in Bairat, Rajasthan, formed of a central stupa surrounded by a circular colonnade and an enclosing wall, built during the time of Emperor Ashoka and near which were found several Minor Rock Edicts.[4] Ashoka also built the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya circa 250 BC, possibly also a circular structure, next to the Bodhi tree. Representations of this early temple structure are found on a 100 BCE relief from the stupa railing at Bhārhut, as well as in Sanchi.[5] These circular-type temples were also found in later rock-hewn caves such as Tulja Caves or Guntupalli. Circularity in Buddhist architecture was generally to allow a path for pradakshina or devotional circling of a round and solid stupa.[4]
It has been suggested that these circular structures with colonnades may have originated with the Greek circular tholos temple, as in the Tholos of Delphi, but circular wooden huts in India are a more likely source of inspiration.[6]
The Caucasus[edit]
There is an interesting connection between Central European and Caucasian rotundas of the 9th to 11th centuries AD. Several Armenian built rotunda churches have sixfold arched central apsis, i.e. at Aragatz, Bagaran, Bagnayr, Botshor, Kiagmis Alti in Armenia. At the same time eightfold arched central buildings (rotunda) are also frequently occurring in Armenia: Ani, Irind, Varzhahan. It was a suggestion (Csemegi J.) that there was not only western European but Eastern Caucasian relation for architects of Hungary in this age of King Stephen I of Hungary.
Good example of Georgian rotunda church is Bana cathedral which is now located on territory of Turkey.