Indian Temple Architecture- Understood through the case of The Virupaksha Temple in Hampi It is believed that the history of Hinduism traces back to the beginning of human civilization. In an urge to find something more powerful than human life, a comfort in the chaos, humans for over 5000 years found the need to place their beliefs in a superior entity. It began with the worship of different forces of nature, embodied by human-like deities, and evolved into extremely complex practices and beliefs. This changed the spaces for worship from modest shelters for the deities in the form of shrines to colossal sculptural monuments, from spontaneous acts of construction to an elaborate ritual practice. The progression from the idea of temples being personal shrines that invoke god into temporary objects of daily worship, to temples being more “public” spaces shaped the development of the temple form and complex. The origin of the temple typology seemed to be from this idea of invoking god into an object, but through certain rituals, the temple plot and space is the object that gets consecrated. The temple thus serves to give context to the main object or image of worship which is permanent in a sense that once the invocation ritual is completed it continues to hold the power of God. Beyond this, the form of the temple responds to the shifts in beliefs and shifts in the politics of Hinduism. Around the 6th Century BCE two main ideas of the supreme being were consolidated, the omnipresence of divinity throughout nature, and the divine in the human soul, held by the human body. Consequently, the Rigveda was written, which explained Hindu cosmology, from which two creation myths emerged. The first stated that the universe emerged from a golden egg, the Hiranyagarbha sukta. According to this story, After the dissolution of the universe, amidst infinite darkness, Svayambhu, the self-manifested being arose, one beyond senses. This being created the primordial waters first and established the seed of creation into it. The seed turned into a golden womb, the Hiranyagarbha into which the Svayambhu entered, emerged as Brahma (the god of creation), and gave birth to the universe, which eventually dissolved and formed again in the same way. This story led to the strong underlying theme of emergence and growth being articulated in the temple form. The second significant creation myth stated that the creation arose out of the dismemberment of the Purusha, a primeval cosmic being who is sacrificed by the gods. The gods then performed a yajna with the Purusha, leading to the creation of the other things in the manifested world from his various body parts and his mind. The manifestation of this story is seen in the temple form through the use of the Vastupurushamandala, a treatise that prescribed the planning of temples. To design the abode of god, which the temples were believed to be, a perfect geometrical form had to be selected. The Hindus chose a square as opposed to a circle which represented mobility and movement. Unlike the circle, the square represented stability and permanence, perfect to hold the otherwise heavenly and elusive gods. This square was then further divided and the Purusha was housed in the grid. Each cell of the grid thus held a different body part, each representing a different divine quality and infused with a different metaphysical being. This evolved diagram was termed the Vastupurushamandala. The Vastupurushamandala draws its origins from the story of the sacrificed primordial man. So, the temple layout is like a primordial man, and the universe is shown to emerge from him. The Garbhagriha, the inner sanctum of the temple is said to hold Brahma and represents the center of power of the divine being. The structures emanating from it in the form of aedicules, radiate the power outwards. The walls of the
temples thus have deities and beings carved in the aedicules, which are contained within the larger divine being of the temple. The temple thus behaved as a microcosm. The Vastupurushamandala, and other temple-building traditions were interpreted and articulated very differently in different parts of the country. Temples were thus the results of various permutations and combinations of the mandala and the aedicules. One such temple is the 7th Century Virupaksha Temple. The Virupaksha Temple is located in Hampi, in the state of Karnataka, in Southern India. This stone temple is, and over centuries has been considered the principal center of sacred pilgrimage at Hampi. As the capital of the glorious Vijayanagara Empire, Hampi was built on the banks of the Tungabhadra River and as is the case of most temple sites, the plot of Virupaksha had mythological associations with the river. The temple was built in devotion to Lord Shiva, the consort of the local goddess Pampadevi who was associated with the Tungabhadra River. The construction of the temple was sponsored by the ruler Deva Raya II. It was a common practice of the time for rulers to construct temples not only to earn the favor of God, but also as a symbol of their economic and political power. Not only that, temples were social and educational centers that served as a backdrop for devotional arts, visual and performing. The temple employed thousands and received funding from various mercantile, and artisnal guilds other than the royals. To encapsulate all of these cultural purposes beyond the spiritual and cosmic purposes of behaving as an Axis Mundi, the temple form had specific spaces and elements, and in this case, they were composed in the Dravida style, which was the constructional language of the region. The Dravida style had its roots in the regional barrel-vaulted or dome-shaped thatched bamboo roofs prevalent in Southern India. The simplest form of the shrine was known as the Alpa Vimana. Eventually, the walls of this shrine started housing niche-like aedicules, and as the pantheon of gods and structural prowess increased, the Alpa Vimana evolved. The square plan became staggered and the aedicular projections simultaneously increased, representing the pattern of emergence of the cosmos. The number of talas, or floors, of the roof of the shrine increased and eventually, the larger composition came to be known as the Vimana. This Complex volume was coupled with a Mandapa, which was a social and meditative space, and it was encircled by the pradakshina patha, a circumambulatory path, which when completed represented a complete journey through the universe. Virupaksha has incrementally expanded from a small shrine into a large complex over centuries. It housed a temple tank, a huge colonnaded market, and numerous smaller shrines. Most of the temple buildings were ascribed to the Vijayanagara period, and additions were been made in the late Chalukyan and Hoysala periods. The most significant addition to the temple was that of the Gopuram. Gopurams were lofty gateways that defined the temple complexes and gave them significance. It heightened the visual impact of the temple precinct and invited the devotees in. It furthered the idea of recreating a vast heavenly city on Earth through a temple precinct and made the whole site a sacred space. Despite the systematic destruction of most of the structures by invaders in the 16th century, worship has persisted throughout the years. Major renovations and additions were made at the beginning of the 19th century. There are no expectations for future alterations to the development of this complex. Apart from features that are common to the Dravidian style, Virupaksha’s development is also drawn from Hampi’s site-specific geography and history. The smooth inclusion of microtopographic elements for the temple’s construction in this sacred space gave the opportunity for patrons to nurture specific ritual corporeal experiences for the devotees that arrive. For centuries, temple and shrine architecture were restricted to few spatial planning concerns, such as a structure’s physical and visual accessibility to its surrounding context. The Virupaksha temple much like most temples of comparable historical significance was a social construction. The act of construction albeit orchestrated by an architect, gave the craftspeople freedom to experiment and reimagine visuals, it involved the community in its ritual practices and belonged to the
people. The development of these temple precincts would result in flourishing micro-economies many of which are still existing and expanding. Instead of fetishizing the aesthetics of the traditional building systems, the sociality of the process of construction should be preserved. The temple still hosts various festivals and festivities, the most prominent of which are, the Marriage festival of Virupaksha and Pampa in December, and the renowned chariot festival in February. In all its visual and anthropological complexities, the Virupaksha Temple serves as a representative prototype one can study to understand the sacred and ever-evolving process of the Indian Temple.
Bibliography 1: Hardy, A. (2007, January 1). The Temple Architecture of India. John Wiley & Sons. 2: Bharne, V., & Krusche, K. (2014, September 18). Rediscovering the Hindu Temple. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 3: Grover, S. (2003, January 1). Buddhist and Hindu Architecture in India. 4: Hashim, M. (2018, August 28). VIRUPAKSHA TEMPLE. Lovely-professional-university. https://www.academia.edu/37303085/VIRUPAKSHA_TEMPLE 5: Haak, C. (2022, August 30). A Digital Analysis of an Early Medieval Cultic and Ritual Change in Hampi: The Mula Virupaksha Temple in the Hemakuta Hill Sacred Space. Histories; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. https://doi.org/10.3390/histories2030023