landscape, a site for popular rituals and a protective element
in the complex system of fengshui (geomancy) that sought
to balance qi (vital energy) that flowed in patterns across the
surface of the earth. Yet older meanings were rarely lost. At
the pagoda of the Temple of the Buddha’s Tooth outside
Beijing, post-Communist crowds still come as pilgrims, kow-
towing as they ascend the steps to revere the sacred relic and
worship the Buddha.
S ́IKHARA. By the fifth century CE the Indian S ́ilpa Sa ̄stra texts
had formally designated the tower or ́sikhara as the most
prominent architectural statement for the Hindu temple
(i.e., vima ̄na, that which is “well measured”) and the crown-
ing achievement for the idea of pratibimba (the creation of
divine regions). The ́sikhara served at least three functions:
as denoting generally sacred space, as a sacred mountain that
denotes the dwelling place of the deity, and as a vehicle that
carries the deity into the presence of the people and the peo-
ple into the presence of the deity. The S ́ilpa Sa ̄stra texts also
suggest that those who build temples will not only be pros-
perous and have peaceful reigns but will have sons to succeed
them and care for the funerary rites. Thus the reigning
dynasties had great incentives to build these towering tem-
ples to the gods.
The Hindu temple as a whole became the architectural
form of the va ̄stupurus:a man:d:ala, the locus where the divine
being (purus:a) dwells. It is almost always built on an east-
west axis, with the entrance from the east and the tower
above the western end. Underneath the tower is the inner
sanctum, the garbagr:ha, the dwelling place of the deity.
Along the roof of the vima ̄na from entrance to ́sikhara are
gradually ascending towers that imitate the sacred Himala-
yas, the ultimate dwelling place of the gods and goddesses
on earth. Surmounting the ́sikhara on all temples is a kala ́sa,
or water pot, signifying the eternal bathing (abhiseka) of the
tower by the holy waters of the Ganges River. In the north-
ern- or na ̄gara-style the temple tower is convex, with an
a ̄malaka or fruit of the Indian gooseberry (Emlica officinalis)
immediately below the kala ́sa. The southern- or Dravida-
style tower is concave and has a small stupa (stu ̄p ̄ıka) below
the kala ́sa symbolizing the cosmic dome over the dwelling
of the deity.
Most temples were constructed as places where brahman
priests could perform pu ̄ja, ritual worship on behalf of the
king and his realm, reminding the people of the king’s power
and divine right to rule. Temples thus became centers of po-
litical, social, and cultural as well as religious activities. As the
towers became higher in both North and South India, this
sense of dominance was enhanced. The architectural climax
of this movement is evident in the Br:hade ́svara temple of the
early eleventh century CE Co ̄
̄
la king, Ra ̄jara ̄ja, of Thanjavur
in South India. Towering 210 feet above the base of the tem-
ple, the ́sikhara is as high as the technology of the period
would allow, and it remains the tallest temple tower in all
of India. The eighty-ton stu ̄p ̄ıka that crowns the ́sikhara is
the largest single stone employed by Indian architecture on
any temple tower.
Following the Co ̄
̄la period the temple tower that
marked the holy of holies began to lose its vertical domi-
nance in the south, whereas the goparam, or gateway to the
temple precincts, achieved ascendancy. By the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, at the temple cities of S ́r ̄ıran ̇ gam and
Madurai, the gateways reached as much as fourteen stories
into the sky and could be seen for miles around as one ap-
proached the city. Here both resident and visitor entered the
sacred precincts and were at the same time reminded of the
king’s power to protect his people. As many of the ́sikharas
had done in earlier times, these towers assumed a didactic
function, visualizing in hundreds of sculpted images various
mythic narratives of the lives of the gods for the mostly non-
literate population.The Indian temple ́sikhara as mountain–sacred city ex-
hibits its most extravagant forms and highest ornamentation
in the Hindu temple complexes of the Khmers of Cambodia
(e.g., Angkor Wat) and the Buddhist temple tower complex
at Borobudur in Java. The latter combines the stupa idea
with Hindu ́sikhara towers in imitation of the holy moun-
tain range of the Himalayas with Mount Meru as the center
peak. At Borobudur pilgrims are guided through a ritual of
ascension from the lower and outer precincts until they reach
the central stupa representing Mount Meru, the culmination
of their journey.
CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. The architecture of the Christian
churches provides the principal example of towers in Europe,
and their development is a revealing history in stone. In the
earliest pre-architectural stage, the ecclesia was simply the
gathering of believers in crypts or private homes. In the post-
Constantinian period Christians adopted the Roman basili-
ca, a secular and civic building, as a place for worship. Two
developments followed, both containing the seeds for the
vertical development that occurred in the following centu-
ries. The central domed structure of Byzantine classical style
that developed from the circular plan of the martyrium and
baptistery gained height and size, resulting in an interior
space that was homologized to the universe of time and
space. Standing firmly on the earth in the present, the wor-
shiper could look upward at the dome of the church as a
symbol of the heaven to come. The iconography of Christ,
the Virgin, and saints, often portrayed against a background
of gold mosaic, enhanced this impression. The Romanesque
church of western Europe, a development of the basilica
form into a cruciform plan, showed the first high vaulting
and spires, then developed into the Gothic style, the epitome
of vertical aspiration. Without drawing out the distinctions
between spire, steeple, belfry, and bell tower, it is clear that
from the twelfth century on architects strove for luminosity,
lightness, and majestic height in their cathedrals.
The French Gothic cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, and
Amiens seem to push the vertical aspiration to its material
and architectural limit. Whether as the domed eastern style
or the lofty vaulted western style, the change in meaning is
clear. From a gathering of people in an ordinary secularTOWERS 9265