Encyclopedia of Religion

Roga Diti

Pit

Gan- Ya- Brhat-

Pa-

Antar

Jaya Sav

Indra Savit

Rajay Apah

Rud- Apav-

hi ti

Pap. Agni

Mrga Anila

A- Mu- Bhal- So- Bhu- Adi-

khya lata ma jaya

raja dharva ma ksata tha san

Sosa Parjanya

Asara Prthvidhara Jayanta

Varuna Mi- Brahman Arya- Indra

Kusumad tra Brahman Man Surya

Vivasvant Satya

Dauvar

Bhrnga-

Bhrsa

CAVE, MOUNTAIN, AND SHELTER. By the early centuries CE
the use of anthropomorphic images to focus worship had
moved from “substratum” cults into mainstream Hinduism
and into Buddhism. Early Hindu images often represented
cosmic parturition—the coming into present existence of a
divine reality that otherwise remains without form—as well
as “meditational constructs,” to use T. S. Maxwell’s phrase.
The representation of the Buddha became permissible with
the emergence of two new conceptions: the Buddha in cos-
mic form, replacing or supplementing the stupa as focus for
meditation, and the boddhisattvas, figures who mediate be-
tween the aspirant and the ultimate reality of nonexistence.
Behind anthropomorphic imagery in India, however, is al-
ways an ultimate reality without form.

Early shelters for anthropomorphic images were of sev-
eral types: apsidal brick structures resembling the caitya-gr:has
of the Buddhists, elliptical structures perhaps suggesting the
“cosmic egg,” open altars and hypaethral structures (both ex-
tending earlier aniconic formulas), small stone chatr ̄ıs (um-
brellas or pavilions), cave shrines, and eventually temples
with towers. Rock-cut shrines of the early fifth century CE
(particularly those at Udayagiri, near Vidi ́sa, in central
India), present two imperative metaphors for the temple: the
sanctum as womb (garbha) in which the seed of divinity can
be made manifest, and the temple as mountain. As the cave
opens up the earth, so the sanctum opens up the temple.

If existing cave shrines emphasize the cave metaphor, an
inscription dated 423/4 CE from Gan ̇ gadha ̄ra in western
India already compares a temple there to “the lofty peak
( ́sikhara) of the mountain Kaila ̄ ́sa,” and the so-called Pa ̄rvat ̄ı
Temple at Nachna of about 465 CE ornamentally rusticates
its exterior walls to suggest Kaila ̄ ́sa’s piled rocks and animal-
filled grottoes. The metaphors of cave and mountain for
sanctum and temple are explicit in inscriptions and texts, but
it is the concept of divinity made manifest and the practice
of devotional worship (bhakti) that make the temple possi-
ble. The cosmic mountain and its womb/cave ultimately
shelter a tender divinity, in the form of an image, and must
open out to include and give shelter to the worshiper, who
approaches the central point of cosmic manifestation along
a longitudinal axis.

ICONICITY OF ARCHITECTURAL FORM. In North India, the
fifth century CE saw experimentation in the means by which
architecture could supply shelter to images. Small cave shel-
ters were excavated (Udayagiri), cavelike cells were construct-
ed (Sa ̄ñc ̄ı), structures with towers were built in impermanent
materials (Gan ̇ gadha ̄ra), and stone “mountains” were built
(as at Nachna) with cavelike sanctums. Some temples began
to show multiple and variant images of the central divinity
on the walls (Mad:hia), and others became complexes by ad-
ding subsidiary shrines to shelter other deities (Bhumara,
Deogarh). Such a proliferation of images can be seen as a
product of the Hindu conception of cosmic parturition: if
divine reality is formless, through the process of creation it
takes an infinity of forms in this (created) world; though the

FIGURE 1. Va ̄stupurus:a Man:d:ala. Ritual diagram for temple

construction as described in Vara ̄hamihira’s Br:aht Sam:hita ̄;

sixth century CE.

individual may choose one divinity as “trunk” for worship,

others take up appropriate positions as “branches.”

Only in the sixth century did such experiments lead to

a North Indian temple form that was complete in its symbol-

ism and architectural definition. On plan, the North Indian

temple grows from the Va ̄stupurus:a Man:d:ala (see figure 1):

its corners are those of the square vedi; its walls are half the

width of the sanctum in thickness (as prescribed in the Br:hat

Sam:hita ̄); at its center is the brahmastha ̄na. The outer walls

begin to acquire projecting planes that measure the dimen-

sions of the interior sanctum and the “place for brahman.”

The central projections on the wall now and then show

closed doorways but most often frame secondary images

(par ́svadevata ̄s) that extend and differentiate the form of the

divinity within. In elevation, these planes continue up

through the superstructure as bands that curve in to meet a

square slab at the top of the temple, from which a circular

necking projects. The necking supports a large, circular,

ribbed stone (a ̄malaka) that takes the form of an a ̄mala fruit

and normally is crowned by a stone waterpot (kala ́sa) from

which leaves sometimes sprout.

The imagery (and its iconicity) is explicit. Just as the

block of the temple’s walls projects planes outward in order

to display the images that make its sacred content manifest,

so too the temple “grows” in altitude, marking the process

of cosmic parturition by its form. The womb of the temple,

its sanctum (garbhagr:ha), provides the dimension for an ut-

taravedi (“upper altar”) that terminates the tower (some sev-

enth-century shrines show this altar as a shallow, pillared

TEMPLE: HINDU TEMPLES 9039