De- and Re-constructing the Indian Temple

Art Journal

Volumn 49, Issue 4, 1990, Pages 395-400

  Meister, Michael W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84972813339     PISSN: 00043249     EISSN: 23255307     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00043249.1990.10792723     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. See James Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture (London: John Murray, 1876).
2. Percy Brown. Indian Architecture: Buddhist and Hindu. 3d rev. ed. (Bombay: Taraporevala's Treasure House of Books, 1959);
3. Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple, 2 vols. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1946; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976).
4. Reprint reviewed by Michael W. Meister in the Art Bulletin 62, no. 1 (March 1980): 180–82.
5. See Michael W. Meister, “Temple Building in South Asia: Science as Technology's Constraint,” Science and Technology in South Asia (Proceedings of the South Asia Seminar 2), ed. Peter Gaeffke and David A. Utz (Philadelphia: Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1985), 31-38;
6. Murray Liber-sat, “Architects and Architecture of Kerala,” Making Things in South Asia: The Role of Artist and Craftsman (Proceedings of the South Asia Seminar 4), ed. Michael W. Meister (Philadelphia: Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1988), 96–102.
7. See Burton Stein, ed., South Indian Temples: An Analytical Reconsideration (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1978); and Ann Grodzins Gold, Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
8. See Thomas S. Maxwell, “The Five Aspects of Siva (In Theory, Iconography and Architecture),” Arts International 25, nos. 3–4 (March-April 1982): 41–57.
9. Michael W. Meister. “On the Development of a Morphology for a Symbolic Architecture: India,” Res, Anthropology and Aesthetics 12 (Autumn 1986): 33–50; idem, “Prāsāda as Palace: Kśtina Origins of the Nāgara Temple,” Artibus Asiae 45 (1989): 254–80.
10. Charles Sanders Peirce, “Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs,” Philosophical Writings of Peirce, ed. Justus Buchler (New York: Dover Publications, 1955). 98–119.
11. Varahamihira. Brhat Sainhitā. trans. H. Kern. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, n.s., 4–6 (1869–74), chap. 53 (”On Architecture”); Kramrisch, Hindu Temple, 19–63; and Michael W. Meister, “Measurement and Proportion in Hindu Temple Architecture,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviens 10, no. 3 (1985): 248–58.
12. Michael W. Meister, “Mandala and Practice in Nāgara Architecture in North India,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 99, no. 2 (1979): 204–19; idem, “Analysis of Temple Plans: Indor,” Artibus Asiae 43 (1982): 302–20; and idem. “Geometry and Measure in Indian Temple Plans: Rectangular Temples,” Artibus Asiae 44 (1983): 266–96.
13. Meister, “Measurement and Proportion.”
14. Meister. “On the Development of a Morphology.” Patrick George, a Ph.D. candidate in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, has recently demonstrated that such curvatures can also be approximated by craftsmen by the use of an arithmetic series in reducing the dimensions of each story.
15. See Michael W. Meister. “A Note on the Superstructure of the Marhiā Temple.” Artibus Asiae 36 (1974): 81–88 (esp. fig. 4): and idem. “Construction and Conception: Mandapikā Shrines of Central India.” East and West. n.s., 26 (1976): 409–18.
16. Peirce, “Logic as Semiotic.” The “universality” of archetypes for such forms is argued by Mircea Eliade, “Sacred Space and Making the World Sacred,” The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harcourt. Brace and World, 1959), 20–65.
17. Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology, trans, by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968). 10.
18. See Maxwell, “The Five Aspects of Siva” and idem. Visvarśpa (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988).
19. Meister. “Analysis of Temple Plans”: idem. “Mundesvari: Ambiguity and Certainty in the Analysis of a Temple Plan, “KalādarSana: American Studies in the Art of India, ed. Joanna G. Williams (New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., 1981). 77–90: Donald M. Stadtncr, “Ancient Kosala and the Stellate Plan.” Kalādarsana, 137–45: Michael W. Meister, “The Udayesvara Temple Plan.” Srinidhih: Perspectives in Indian Archaeology. Art and Culture (Madras: New Era Publications. 1983). 85–93: idem, “Siva's Forts in Central India: Temples in Daksina Kosala and Their ’Daemonic’ Plans,” Discourses on Siva. Proceedings of a Symposium on the Nature of Religious Imagery, ed. Michael W. Meister (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1984). 119–42.
20. Peirce. “Logic as Semiotic” Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi. “On Ducksand Decoration,” Architecture Canada 45. no. 7 (October 1968): 48; and Robert Venturi. Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1977. 87–91) (a revised version of Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1972]). See also Charles Jencks. Towards a Symbolic Architecture: The Semantic House (New York: Rizzoli. 1985).
21. Meister. “On the Development of a Morphology”: and idem. “Prāsāda as Palace.”
22. See Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. “Early Indian Architecture.” pts. 1 and 2. Eastern Art 2(1930): 208–35: pt. 3, Eastern Art 3(1931):181–2l7:pt. 4. ed. Michael W. Meister. Res, Anthropology and Aesthetics 15 (Spring 1988): 5–26.
23. Meister. “On the Development of a Morphology”: idem, “Prāsāda as Palace” and idem, “Darrā and the Early Gupta Tradition,” Chhavi II (Varanasi: Bharat Kala Bhavan. Banaras Hindu University. 1981). 192–205.
24. Stephen W. Hawking. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (New York: Bantam Books. 1988). 198.
25. Dennis Hudson. “The Vaikuntha Perumal Temple in Kanchipuram: An Analysis.” paper presented at the 1990 annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Chicago.
26. Romila Thapar. From Lineage to State (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1984); idem, public lectures on “The Itihāsa-Purāna Tradition” Michael W. Meister. “Temples, Tirthas. and Pilgrimage: The Case of Osiān.” paper presented at the International Conference on Rajasthan. Jaipur. 1987. in Ratna-Chandrikā: Panorama of Oriental Studies, ed. Devendra Handa and Ashvini Agrawal (New Delhi: Harman Publishing House, 1989), 275–81; and Mary Linda. “Cooper Plate Grants: New Applications of Old Information,” manuscript, 1989.
27. Encyclopaedia of India Temple Architecture, vol. 1, pts. 1 and 2; vol. 2. pt. 1; George Michell, Early Western Calukyan Temples (London: Art and Archaeology Research Papers, 1975); Odette Viennot, Temples de l’Inde centrale et occidentale: Etude stylistique de chronologie relative du VIe au milieu du Xe siècle (Publications de l’Ecole Française d’Extrème-Orient. Mémoires archéologiques XI) (Paris: Ecole Française d’Extrème-Orient, 1976); and Thomas E. Donaldson, Hindu Temple Art in Orissa, 3 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985, 1986, 1987).
28. Stella Kramrisch, “The Four-Comered Citadel of the Gods.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 75 (July-September 1955): 184–87.
29. Michael W. Meister, “Temple: Hindu Temples,” in The Encyclopaedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan. 1987). 14: 368–73.
30. Barthes, Elements of Semiology, 98.
31. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Lamguage, New College Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1979). s.v. “synchronous.” “synchronous orbit.”
32. Edmund Leach, “Structuralism.” Encyclopaedia of Religion, 14: 61.
33. R. M. Martin. “Semantics.” Encyclopaedia of Religion, 13: 171; Barthes, Elements of Semiology. 14–15.
34. Barthes. Elements of Semiology, 98.
35. See R. C. Agrawala. “Some Famous Sculptors and Architects of Mewar.” Indian Historical Quarterly 33 (1957): 321–34;
36. M. A. Dhaky. “Renaissance and the Late Māru-Gurjara Temple Architecture.” Western Indian Art
37. U. P. Shah and Kalyan K. Ganguli (special number of the Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art. Calcutta. 1966). 4–22.