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Measurement and Proportion in Hindu Temple Architecture PROFESSOR MICHAEL W. MEISTER Departments of the History of Art and South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA Proportion and measure interacted in the evolution and construction of the Hindu temple from the 5th t...

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Measurement and proportion in Hindu temple architecture Michael W Meister Interdisciplinary science reviews

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Measurement and Proportion in Hindu Temple Architecture PROFESSOR MICHAEL W. MEISTER Departments

of the History

of Art and South Asia Regional

Studies, University

of Pennsylvania,

Philadelphia,

USA

Proportion and measure interacted in the evolution and construction of the Hindu temple from the 5th through the 15th century AD, but, throughout this history, proportion dominated as the tool to give the monument both validity and form. This reviewanalyzes the ritual force of proportion and its function in the planning of temples by architects. The diagrams that accompany the article are the result of field research and the analysis of built structures.

In ancient late Vedic India, ritual centered on an altar for sacrifice; built of brick, its primary shape was square, taking the shape of the created universe in

early Indian cosmogony.I This act of 'creation' was the archetype for the architect's role as builder. Texts of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC- among the earliest written texts surviving from India - record the geometry used to construct these altars. One of these texts explains that 'all the surface of the earth is vedi [altar]. . . . Still, selecting a particular part of it and measuring it they should perform the [sacrifice] there.'2

This 'altar' of early ritual marks both the inner sanctum and the upper limit of later Hindu temples, created to give shelter for images that make divinity manifest in a new way for worship. On some 'early Nagara temples, such as the Visva-Brahma at Alampur of the late 7th century AD, such a square altar physically appears as the uttaravedl or 'upper altar' at the top of the curvilinear tower of the temple.3

Ritual

Diagram

Ritual dimensions for the Vedic altar were well documented by the time temples began to take on a distinctive architectural definition in the 5th to 7th centuries AD. An early 6th-century text, the Brhat Samhitii of

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Figure 1. Vastumar:u;lala (building diagram) of 9 x9=81 squares, used for the planning of houses, palaces. and cities. Such a diagram had its origin as early as the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, from which texts survive that specify the geometry for construction of brick altars. The central squares are the most sacred space (the brahmastana); the 32 peripheral squares house guardian deities (padadevatas). (After Kern.4) 248

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCEREVIEWS, VOL.10, NO.3, 1985

Figure 2. VastumaQl;lala of 8 x8=64 squares. Prescribed in the Brhat SariJita, a sixth-centuryAD text, specifically for the planning of temples and actually used in north India for planning temple structures from at least the 6th century. (After Kern.4) @ J W Arrowsmith Ltd, 1985

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Figure 3. Bhubanesvara, Orissa, eastern India. Parasuramesvara Temple, ca. AD 600-650. Groundplan. The thickness of the walls, measured at the corners, is half the breadth of the sanctum, as specified in the Brhat SariJhitli.

Varahamihira, records in a chapter on domestic and city architecture that structures were normally to be built in relation to a grid of 9 x 9 = 81 squares (Figure I); the same text specifies in a separate chapter that a grid of 8 x 8 = 64 squares should be used for building temples (Figure 2).4 The peripheral squares of these diagrams house guardian deities (padadevatas); the central squares mark the most sacred space (the place for brahman). 5 The Brhat Sari/hila specifies that the thickness of the walls of a temple should be half the width of the sanctum but gives few other clues to the proportional systems appropriate to the newly developing temple architecture.6 Later texts give grids of 8 x 8,9 x9, and 10 x 10; others give a wide variety of grids, declaring, in one instance, that 'each is fit for all.,7 The ritual grid of the Vedic altar provides a continuity of significance for the Hindu temple; it sanc-

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Figure 4. Mahua, Madhya Pradesh, central India. Siva Temple no. 2, ca. AD650-675. Groundplan with constructing grid. The central projection of each wall measures the interior brahmastlina (the central four squares of the sanctum); the flanking offsets measure the full dimension of the sanctum. The degree of projection for these offsets is a half and a full square.

tifies the temple and also guards it. The problem for the architectural historian has been to find whether practical means existed by which the dimensions of the altar could be applied to an increasingly complex architectural tradition.8 Stella Kramrisch, whose volumes on The Hindu Temple in 1946 helped restore a ritual dimension to Western understanding of Hindu architecture, wrote that the ritual diagram (the vastupuru$ama1;IlJala)'is the metaphysical plan of the temple' but that 'this does not imply an identity of the actual plan of the temple with the mal).l;iala. . . . When the great temples were built... the drawing of the vastupuru~amal).l;iala had become an architectural rite.'9 My work in the field has shown that this grid, however, continued to provide a practical tool for the architect, flexible in its application over a number of centuries 10;by preserving the ritual grid, the architect

PROFESSOR MICHAEL W. MEISTER is professor of Indian art in the History of Art and South Asia Regional Studies Departments at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and previously taught at the University of Texas, Austin. He received his PhD from Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., in 1974. He was born in Florida, USA, in 1942, and is Editor of the American Institute of Indian Studies' EncyclopiBdia of Indian Temple Architecture. His first visit to India was on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1964--66 and he was a Senior Fulbright Fellow in 1976-77. He was convenor for the 'Discourses on Siva' Symposium held in conjunction with the recent Manifestations of Siva exhibition in America. Address: G-29 Meyerson Hall CJ, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCEREVIEWS,VOL. 10, NO.3, 1985 249

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Figure 5. Amral, Madhya Pradesh. Mahadeva Temple, ca. AD 700. Measured grid of groundplan. Wall offsets measure the sanctum and the central brahmastana (measurements are made at the base of the wall-moldings). The levels of projection are a quarter and half a square.

Figure 7. Osiafi, Rajasthan, temple has four subsidiary goddess (SW); SOrya, the probably a cosmic form of 250

Figure 6. Amrol, view of Mahadeva Temple fram south. The cardinal niche contains an image of GaQesa, Siva's son. Corner niches contain images of Siva's host: either Dikpalas (Guardians of the Directions) or bhOtas (goblins).

western India. Harihara Temple no. 1, ca. AD 750. View from west. This shrines on the corners of a raised platform. These make manife(>t the sun god (SE); Vi~Qu (NE); and GaQesa (NW). The central divinity was Vi~Qu.

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCEREVIEWS, VOL. 10, NO.3, 1985

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