The Jagannatha Temple at Puri

The Jagannatha Temple at Puri
Author: O M Starza
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2023-08-14
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9004646566

An account of the architecture, sculpture, paintings and associated festivals of the great VaisnĚŁava shrine of Jagannatha at Puri in Orissa, on the east coast of India, together with a new analysis of the origin of the icons of the Triad.

The Temple Architecture of India

The Temple Architecture of India
Author: Adam Hardy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2007
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

Through lucid visual analysis, accompanied by drawings, this book will allow readers to appreciate the concepts underlying designs that at first sight often seem bewilderingly intricate. The book will be divided into six parts that cover the history and development of the design and architecture of Indian temples.

Archaeology and Text

Archaeology and Text
Author: Himanshu Prabha Ray
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2010
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

What is a temple? Who built or patronized such structures and why? Temples have always formed a crucial element of the cultural landscape of South Asia. Combining textual analysis, archaeology, and archival research with contemporary anthropology, Archaeology and Text provides a stimulating appraisal of religious life in the past. Through detailed case studies from regions like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bengal, and Orissa, the book examines both the religious architecture of the temples and the cultural practices surrounding them. The essays underscore the importance of the temple in its interaction with diverse interest groups, such as worshippers, ritual specialists, ascetics, patrons, artisans, and others. They also show how temples were not only expressions of political authority but also formed important centres of learning, popular devotion, and pilgrimage. The volume explores the development of bhakti and ascetic traditions in the subcontinent in relation to temples. It investigates the relationship between sacrificial rituals and devotional practices; emergent religious cultures and older traditions; and temples and renouncers. The collection also questions the notion of boundaries surrounding religious traditions underlining the fact that present categories do not fit neatly in those of a bygone era. The introduction provides a succinct account of sacred spaces as they came to be defined in archaeological records from the first millennium BCE onwards.