In Opening Kailasanatha, Padma Kaimal explains the intended message of the creators of the temple and its means of reception by the viewers. Under her guidance in ritual clockwise circling of the complex, one focuses on animated mythic depictions that fill the temple walls of the gods' worldly engagement; then circling in the counterclockwise direction, the focus changes to themes of renunciation and ascetic practice. Following those complementary pathways enables viewers to understand the balanced exoteric and esoteric aspects of divine power through their own experience. Focusing on the architecture, sculpture, and inscriptions, as well as dramatic changes of emphasis caused by the effects of changing seasonal and daily light and shadow, offers insights that complement what Shaiva Siddhanta texts explain. In this way the reader vividly experiences the temple while reading about it from far away.The book's text and design converge to make the complex subject much easier to understand. The text is unusually clearly written and in a style that is lively and fresh—for example, “the figures ‘pop’ from the temple niche. . . .” Those viewing the temple are termed “visitors,” not devotees. “Visitors” encompasses everyone then and now: tourists, school groups, kings, scholars, priests, you, and me. The book progresses through its parts in a logical way.The book designer took extra care to lay out the photos in a sensible way, locating them on the page with a ground plan to which were added symbols of stars, circles, or triangles to mark the location of other photos nearby.The five chapter titles were creatively placed on the contents page in a clockwise circle, arranged in order of circumambulation, to emphasize a major consideration of the study. Circumambulation (pradakshina) enfolds the spiritual concept of transition into bodily movements as worshippers move toward the sacred divine center, the sanctum. One is prepared for entering the presence of the divine in the sanctum by experiencing the myriad nature of the divine expressed in the imagery of the walls as it pervades all of the temple's space. For the benefit of humankind, Shiva, who encompasses all and its opposite and who is the unity of duality, manifests his nature in individual forms.Opening Kailasanatha is not about the temple's architecture or the style of its figures (crusted now with plaster and greatly obscured). It is about the viewer's experience of the temple, its images and its ambiance.The temple is famous and its physical elements have been documented in many studies. Earlier art historians published the basic identification of images, translations of inscriptions on the walls, and its place in history. Built between 700 and 728 by the later Pallava King Rajasimha (Narasimhavarman II; r. ca. 690–728 ce) and his son, it stands as the earliest constructed (that is, not hewn from bedrock) Pallava-dynasty temple. Its nagara (pyramidal, northern style) sikhara (spire) was the king's construction of a mountain to imitate the sacred Mount Kailasa, home of Shiva, to give the god a home in the south, in Tamil Nadu. This temple is said to have set the style and arrangement of temple compounds for a thousand years. The temple complex includes a mandapa or hall, prakhara or surrounding wall, and vimana or temple. The walls of the structures are enlivened with sculptures of gods, animals, people, and ganas that originally were painted. Remnants of paintings of figure groups have also survived. A linga in the sanctum marks the temple as dedicated to Shiva. Behind the linga in the sanctum on the back wall is a relief depiction of Shiva and his family, Somaskandamurti.Contemporary approaches to the study of temples involve a closer look to discern the nature of the original, and the intended interaction of the worshipper with the temple's sculptural program. Dynamics of worship are evident in living Hindu temples. Ancient temples such as Kailasa are no longer actively in worship but are preserved as national heritage sites, and many have become park-like for tourists who pay an admission fee. In order to discern how the contemporary eighth-century worshipper experienced the temple, the visual and physical evidence requires close examination of the architecture, the sculpture, paintings, inscriptions, and even the light, which intensifies and focuses the theater of the temple walls in different seasons and times of day.It is one thing to say that the nature of Shiva, the auspicious lord, encompasses all dualities, but it is another to explain how that is demonstrated. The temple was built as the personal shrine of the king, Rajaraja. The power of kingship in ancient India depended on the devotion of the king—that is, his strength derived from his devotion. He must be austere in his religious practice, but fully worldly in his rule. To explain the relationship of the king to Shiva adds another dimension.For those who have access to the complex web of meaning encoded within the temple, it reveals the profundity of Hindu philosophical thought.Chapter 1, “Order and Improvisation,” is a description of the temple parts and their known history to orient the reader at the site. Actually, the oldest structure built on the site is not seen today. Sacred sites retain their sanctity and are recycled. What is seen today is also remodeled from its original form. The oldest structure is the open mandapa of about 600 ce with its images heavily obscured from their original form by plaster. Perhaps originally it stood before a lost temple; now it stands before Rajasimha's vimana and Mahendravarman's vimana. The dominant structure is Rajaraja's tall, spired temple at the west end of the compound. Mahendra's vimana is in between, with a barrel-vaulted roof like a gopuram. (Mahendra died before his father.) Last, the enclosing prakara wall was built in the eighth century.Chapter 2, “Looking North and South, Celibacy and Intimacy, Struggle and Grace,” presents the great number of images on the temple and the enclosing wall. Kamal describes the fifty-eight prakara compositions. There is a plan to the imagery. Images looking north present gods as celibates, self-disciplined, withholding energy, whereas those looking south represent the dynamic release of energy. Facing north “silhouettes are ‘open,’ bristling with the jagged contours of weapons and pointing fingers . . . they are the radials of an explosive composition. Brandishing weapons or deep in yogic trance. . . . Deadly creatures around them are on alert. Lions snarl. Elephants crouch. Cobras rear.” Kamal writes to meet the drama. These ancient action figures, whirlwinds of movement with many limbs, are balanced by those of the south-looking side, where limbs are relaxed, silhouettes curved, male and female in intimate repose. The author welcomes the reader not by using iconographic terminology but by describing the scene within the niche. Deities exude from the temple or prakara wall in the direction of their origin. The north is auspicious, the south is the abode of death. Shiva's forms on the north inspire terror; those on the south are full of grace. Combined they form the complementary nature of Shiva and the virtues of a king who must be both spiritual and a hero in war, protector, master of war and water on behalf of his kingdom, and a husband and father.Chapter 3 is entitled “Looking East and West, With and Without Sons, Deities, Royalty, Family, and Lineage.” The most frequent depiction in the complex is Shiva seated with his wife, Uma, and their son, Skanda, appearing thirty-one times on the east and west sides. The identification of the royal family with the divine family is emphasized by repetition and is a common analogy in Pallava inscriptions, even on this temple. Other image groups of a childless couple that is human are included in the niches. The ideal state of being for the king is that of Shiva in his householder state, with a son to continue the royal lineage. These groups appear on all walls but are located at highly visible spots facing east and west. Paintings of the family survive in fragments inside the shrine-like cells of the surrounding wall. Inscriptions on the temple describe Mahendra as the son of Rajasimha, who is like Shiva. The message of the imagery, alternating couples without a child with seated family groups of Shiva, Uma, and Skanda, is a prayer for the fortune of a child, a son, an heir.Chapter 4, “Circumambulating This Way and That, Complementarity Set in Motion,” discusses pradakshina or circumambulation of the temple exterior, the normal means of ritual worship at a Hindu temple. Upon entering, one moves toward the left to move in a clockwise direction to view the stories of the god's exoteric nature, of nurturing, governing, virility. Kailasanatha temple, the author demonstrates, encourages an inverted direction of ambulation as well. Apradakshina, counterclockwise movement, is the path of austerity and restraint of an esoteric nature. The images direct the viewer this way or that; one way reverses (or balances) the other. For example, Bhikshatana fetchingly engages the viewer with his seductive smile while walking left, almost saying “follow me” clockwise, while Tripurantaka, opposite on the northwest temple wall, charges counterclockwise. The directions of the inscriptions on the temple base encourage the viewer to move right or left. The intent seems to be to lead the viewer to intuit the depth of the nature of the divine with emanations that complement one another. “Walking clockwise looks like a form of prayer for fecundities, prosperity, and continuities of lineages from the past and into the future generations. Walking counterclockwise looks like prayer seeking protective power, victory, restraint of the self and others, and the transcendence of time” (153).A discussion of images of the goddess Durga from earlier Pallava monuments compared with those seen here demonstrates that here she is seen at all points of the temple. She is the emblem of Victory over Evil. Her nonlinear presence suggests her nature.Chapter 5, “Word-Image Tango, Telling Stories in Words and Sculptures,” focuses on the many inscriptions of the temple. The relation if any between the inscriptions and the imagery is not a simple one. It is more like a tango than a simple waltz, with independent moves by either partner climactically coming together. The inscriptions are incised in stone below the images, but they are not like object captions in a museum. Some inscriptions are panegyric, praising the king for his virtues and relating him to the divinities. The Pallavas, in historical time, continued the standard of behavior of the gods set in earlier time. The acts of the gods are related to the virtuous behavior of the king, but only in a subtle way. The deeds of the gods from an earlier time are carried out on earth by the king. Due to the king's virtue, Shiva has come to dwell in this Kailasa built for him by the king. Like a chronogram, for those who know Sanskrit the message is that the great ruler is reenacting the great stories of the gods. The structure enfolds visitors in a re-creation of the cosmic cycle. Between the imagery and the inscriptions, an initiate comes from his experience of the temple enlightened as to the power and duty of the ruler, which continues the ideal set by the gods in Puranic times. What audience could absorb the full meaning presented here? Perhaps only those who had taken initiation into Shaiva Siddhanta, who could understand the convergence of Rajasimha and Shiva. For others, the immersion into the glory of Shiva conveyed by the epic imagery would convey the king's depth of knowledge and commitment to continue the ancient values.A similar emanation of the nature of Shiva is made in a temple called Kailasa, at Ellora. The comparison is one of many that could be made given that this is the principal dynamic of Hindu temples, as initially explained by Stella Kramrisch in her opus The Hindu Temple and later illustrated by her exhibition “Manifestations of Shiva” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The sensitive and detailed “close-looking” guide offered in this study offers a more approachable explanation of the temple dynamic.The author has written an engaging and scholarly study of the temple that will serve college students as well as interested travelers.