Investigating Architectural Patterns of Indian Traditional Hindu Temples through Visual Analysis Framework

Aditya Kumar Singh,Vinay Mohan Das,Yogesh Kumar Garg,Mohammad Arif Kamal

doi:10.13189/cea.2022.100211

Abstract

The Architectural image of Indian traditional temples has been fascinating the scholars since their discovery, maybe due to their mystic sensorial experience. Historians, archaeologists, artists, anthropologists, astrologists, numerologists, and exclusively architects have been exploring the mysticism either linking myths or textural tenets. The sea change has been witnessed in the architectural language of temples since the beginning of their existence to date. Since the late medieval period, this language has been deciphered in majorly Sanskrit and manifested with due authenticity. It is the colonial period wherein the various scholarships have initiated attempts to decode the mysticism of architectural language through translations & visual transformations. Through a close review of the past researches, the paper has discerned the various constructs and approaches through which scholars have conceptualized and interpreted the architecture of Indian traditional temples. It has focused on contemporary visual frameworks for analysis of Indian traditional temples employed by scholars and the outcomes of the same. The comparatives between the building & text put forth by scholarships were often found constructed on shaky grounds while the visual interpretations had revealed either faltered dimensional transformations or implausible geometrical propensities.

Highlights

The design of the underlined planar geometry of the Indian Traditional Hindu Temples is being derived from the metaphysical correlation to ‘Vastumandala’ or ‘Vastupurusamandala’, a magico-ritual diagram
This section details the results of the narrative literature research on Indian Traditional Hindu Temple typologies & their respective architectural patterns
Indian traditional temple typology has revealed various perspectives and research frameworks leading to the opportunity for research to identify the embedded architectural pattern language of sacred architecture

Summary

Introduction

The design of the underlined planar geometry of the Indian Traditional Hindu Temples is being derived from the metaphysical correlation to ‘Vastumandala’ or ‘Vastupurusamandala’, a magico-ritual diagram. "The Vastumandala is the metaphysical plan of the temple primarily; its cosmological and magical implications are derived from it" [2]. According to Kramrisch, "Vastumandala is a prognostication, a forecast, and tonic of the contents, which will be built in the temple"[3] but that "this does not imply identity of the actual plan of the temple with the mandala. When the great temples were built, after the ninth century and which still stand, the drawing of the Vastupurusamandala had become an architectural rite" [4]. The 64-square mandala has been used to layout the plan of the Nagara temple by the Architects during the 7th century in Central India [6]. Sonit Bafna opines that “these trends, the idea of the governing mandala and the study of Indian architecture from an indigenous perspective can be directly under the rubrics of ‘Vastu sastra or ‘silpasastra’[7]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion