INDIAN TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE FORM AND TRANSFORMATION

THE KARNATA DRAVIDA TRADITION 7th to 13th Centuries

ADAM HARDY

1995, xix+614pp. maps, line drawings, b & w plates, appends, bibl, gloss., index ISBN: 81-7017-312-4: Rs 2000 (HB)

Transformation of forms of Indian temples takes place through a dual process – time as well as space. These two patterns of transformation, through time and (while representing time) in space, reflect one another closely. Both are processes of emergence, expansion and proliferation which simultaneously imply differentiation and fusion, growth from and dissolution into unity.

One of the richest traditions of temple building that India has produced took shape in the seventh century CE, centred in what is now the state of Kamataka, and lasted until the thirteenth century CE. This was one of the two main branches of Drāviḍa or "southern" temples architecture, giving rise to such famous temples as the Virūpākṣa, Paṭṭaḍakal, the Kailāsa, Ellorā and the Hoysaḷeśvara and Halebiḍ. These temples are analysed, along with more than 250 other buildings, in this monumental study that, for the first time, explains the Karṇāta Drāviḍa tradition as one continuous, coherent development.

The present volume shows how to look at these great monuments and makes their complex architecture accessible. It is clearly shown how the formal structure of a temple makes concrete the idea of manifestation, of the transmutation of the eternal and infinite into the shifting multiplicity of existence, the reabsorption of all things into the limitless unity from which they have come.