Preface
An overwhelming impression a visitor to India gets is of the way in which religious activity pervades all aspects of daily life – the integration of everyday living and devotion is almost seamless. A second impression, which follows on quickly from the first, is of the sheer scale of religious activity and the bewildering array of deities that populate the religious landscape. This troubled the twelfth-century ±aiva poet-saint Basavanna, who wrote: Gods, gods, there are so many there’s no place left to put a foot. There is only one god. He is our Lord of the Meeting Rivers [±iva]. Basavanna, hymn 563, (Ramanujan, 1973: 84)
Monotheism, multiplicity, manifestations and personifications – these are the constant themes that run through the stream of Indian religious thought and its most tangible expression, the sculptural temple arts. Indian traditional religions and their arts also continue to confound the outsider with their insistence on juxtaposing the ancient and the modern, reflecting the system’s ability to re-invent itself. There is no single static hierarchy of divine forms; rather, the gods appear and re-appear at their own volition. Hence, any description of the pantheon is doomed to incompleteness. The approach here has not been to attempt to be encyclopaedic but rather to be selective, focusing on the seminal deities and their key forms. The everyday reality of Hinduism for the devotee is of a world populated by an enormous (indeed unnumbered) cast of gods, demi-gods, saints and ascetics, who exist alongside local cult deities and deified heroes. At the pinnacle of this vast theatre preside three supreme gods: ±iva, the embodiment of creative energy and its seeds of destruction; Vi‚ÿu, whose role is to protect the universe from the forces of disintegration and periodically restore order; and Devª, the personification of female power. All of these gods can assume forms that are variously benign or fearsome, through their numerous manifestations. Indian Temple Sculpture aims to assist those interested in the temple arts of India to access the subject in a way that presents its seemingly bewildering multilayering of meanings and apparent (and actual) complexities in an accessible form. Much of what appears here is a synthesis of a large and often demanding literature on Indian religions and the role of devotional art, presented through the filter of my study of temple arts – principally sculpture – and my own observations and study of devotional practices. The emphasis therefore falls on Hindu beliefs, imagery and worship, which are most prevalent in the subcontinent today, but also on Jain and Buddhist practices, both historical and contemporary. Indian religious sculptures in the temple context are examined – their cosmological meaning, how they function within the architectural schema and their dynamic interactive role in worship. It is my hope that this approach will provide a way into this rich and fascinating subject, although it must be stressed that this is but one approach to a subject that defies a single set of definitions. Traditional Indian religions and the art forms to which they give expression carry different meanings for different followers. Much of the meaning is time specific and geographically defined, rendering generalizations flawed from the outset. Generalizations are nonetheless necessary
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