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Re: ARTICLE : Sri Aurobindo on Indian Temple Architecture
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To: soc-religion-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Re: ARTICLE : Sri Aurobindo on Indian Temple Architecture
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From: estima@estima.com (Estima)
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Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 13:24:35 -0600
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian, soc.culture.indian.kerala, soc.culture.indian.karnataka, soc.culture.indian.marathi, soc.culture.indian.gujarati, soc.culture.indian.delhi, soc.culture.indian.jammu-kashmir, soc.culture.tamil, soc.culture.bengali, soc.religion.hindu
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Organization: Estima
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References: <ghenE12ytK.5y@netcom.com>
In article <ghenE12ytK.5y@netcom.com> Srinivasa Chakravarthy <srini@monod.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu> writes:
>From: Srinivasa Chakravarthy <srini@monod.neusc.bcm.tmc.edu>
>Subject: ARTICLE : Sri Aurobindo on Indian Temple Architecture
>Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 19:15:19 GMT
>THE MEANING OF INDIAN TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE
> "To appreciate [the] spiritual-aesthetic truth of Indian
>architecture, it will be best to look first at some work where there is
>not the complication of sorroundings now often out of harmony with the
>building ... some place where there is room for a free background of
>Nature.
>I have before me two prints which can well serve the purpose, a temple
>at Kalahasti, a temple at Simhachalam, two buildings entirely different
>in treatment and yet one in the ground and universal motive. The
>straight
>way here is not to detach the temple from its surroundings, but
>to see it in unity with the sky and low-lying landscape or with the
>sky and hills around and feel the thing common to both, the construction
>and its environment, the reality in Nature, the reality expressed
>in the work of art. The oneness to which this Nature aspires in her
>inconscient self-creation and in which she lives, the oneness to which
>the soul of man uplifts itself in his conscious spiritual upbuilding,
>his labor of aspiration here expressed in stone, and in which so upbuilt
>he and his work live, are the same and the soul-motive is one...
> One of these buildings climbs up bold, massive in projection,
>up-piled in the greatness of a forceful but sure ascent, preserving
>its range and line to the last, the other soars from the strength
>of its base, in the grace and emotion of a curving mass to a rounded
>summit and crowning symbol. There is in both a constant, subtle
>yet pronounced lessening from the base towards the top, but at each
>stage
>the repetition of the same form, the same multiplicity of insistence,
>the same crowded fullness and indented relief, but one maintains its
>multiple endeavor and indication to the last, the other ends in a
>single sign. To find the significance we have first to feel the
>oneness of the infinity in which this nature and this art live,
>then see this thronged expression as the sign of the infinite
>multiplicity which fills this oneness, see in the regular ascent of
>the edifice the subtler and subtler return from the base on earth
>to the original unity and seize on the symbolic indication of its close
>at the top. Not absence of unity but a tremendous unity is revealed.
>Reinterpret intimately what this representation means in the
>terms of our own spiritual self-existence and cosmic being, and we have
>what these great builders saw in themselves and reared in stone...
>To appreciate the detail of Indian architecture is easy when the
>whole is thus seen and known; otherwise, it is impossible."
> Sri Aurobindo
> From "Foundations of Indian Culture"
>--
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mail posts to: ghen@netcom.com : http://www.hindunet.org/srh_home/
a good insight into the general structure of the temple's gopuram. as one
ascends in consciousness, the division between the inner life and outer
decreases and completely ceases at the peak of consciousness, where the
observer is the observed. people have the habit of praying to the top of the
temple's structure and this meaning seems very relevant, though most of the
times the meaning remains hidden.
