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| Aug 20, 2007 8:58 pm |
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Thread:Indian Heritage Architecture |
| Shobha(usha) gowri
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They created art in stone so that even if you went blind you could still see”
With this translation of a song I welcome you to the “Indian Heritage Architecture” thread in the belief that you too will share in the beauty and relevance of our ancient architecture and to contribute to preserving it in the centuries to come.
This thread is about the architectural marvels -the temples and houses and forts and those fantabulous monuments that are witness to our history, our past that gives us our roots, that is so part of our psyche, who we are and who we will be.
To know is to keep the knowledge alive. Every time I see a Discovery or a similar channel portraying Egypt or China, I am left wondering what happened to that other great living in a continuum civilization called India.
Do we not have architecture, a lifestyle, a history, a culture-no many cultures- that are simply astounding and marvelous architectural and scientific wonders?
In my travels I see people talk of two hundred years ago with so much pride and I think-so many of us can trace ours ancestries to many thousand years, many of us have heirlooms that are a few hundred years.
So here is a place where
You can share knowledge of these beauties,
Help preserve them,
Contribute your little mite to do wonders,
To leave this, in all its splendor, for generations to come to take pride in them and feel rooted.
And maybe in this journey we could also discover something in ourselves and about ourselves. That would be the biggest reward.
I invite you, the BBN reader to contribute to this thread and to bring out the best of our Heritage Architecture here.
Enjoy the first posting too:
Where else can you offer the Lord hot boiled rice, cooked bitter gourd and greens poured in a big heap on a platform, in front of the Sanctum sanctorum? Only the steam rising from this offering is offered as Naivedyam, continuing the theme of formlessness of the Divine.
Except at Avudayar koil in Pudukottai district? One of the only two temples dedicated to a human being (the other is Andal in Sri Villiputhur)
The temple is dedicated to Manickavasagar, the poet saint. There is no form to the deity and hence only a platform is seen.
But religion and religious beliefs aside, the cravings on the pillars are nothing short of amazing. The shadows, the perfection of astronomy in stone, the anatomy, dress and jewels of the figures-breath taking.
The story goes that Manickavasagar ,then a minister to the king, was sent to bring in horses (that came in from the middle east(!!)) from the port.(Interesting that there was a port where now there is nothing but arid land). The minister came across this temple with no deity and there appeared a vision. He stayed on to build this temple and the king of course, furious, asked for his head. But in the court of the king appeared this man who said the minister had sent him and who brought such fine horses the king couldn’t just take his eyes of them. The”man”, is believed to be Shiva, who converted foxes to horses, to save the young minister, who was to become one of the four pillars of Shaivism.
Myths apart- you need a whole day to see this temple. Each pillar is carved with gigantic carvings on single stones. The details, of course, are stunning-you can see a rib, a nail, the finger rings, shoes like the present day floaters and which could only have come from the Arabic traders, and the horses. You have the Maratha horse-the Arabian horse and all kinds of breeds. And then of course-if you ever wondered where the kancheevaram sari designers came for their designs-well you now know where.
And as usual in a state of disarray-the mural paintings are all but gone and before long the temple will disappear. But for those of you who love to see music in stone-here is a great one to visit.
Private Reply to Shobha(usha) gowri (new win) |
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