South India, Lower Dravidadesa (v.1) (Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture)

This project has taken many years to reach the form in which it is now presented. Intended to help consolidate a generation of research, this Encyclopedia particularly attempts to codify an appropriate technical terminology for Indian temple architecture, and to illustrate that terminology by chapters which survey the remains of temple architecture in India within a geographic and historical framework. The text and plate volumes presented here cover lower Dravidadesa: these will be followed by volumes on Upper Dravidadesa, Integrated Styles of South India (Vijayanagar and Nayak periods), and by an annotated comprehensive Glossary. North India will be covered in a similar fashion, following a scheme worked out by M.A. Dhaky in 1967. Dhaky, the Associate Director for Research at the A.I.I.S. Centre for Art and Archaeology, Varanasi, serves as Project Coordinator for the South Indian volumes, and has been joined by Krishna Deva for coordination of work on North India.

Terminology may initially overwhelm the reader; and I hope no generation of scholars will slavishly imitate the terminology; but the terms work, and through understanding the terms, their meaning and the categories they establish, the student can approach the temples he studies with a more precise perception. A short reference glossary is provided in this volume; a comparative annotated Glossary giving textual sources is under preparation at the Varanasi Centre. Consistent use of an authentic terminology can become a means to understand the logic of the temple itself.

Implicit in the organization of the Encyclopedia is also a statement about “style,” that most tantalizing of art-historical constructs. Organization begins by region and period; “styles” are identified first by region, then by dynasty. Artistic traditions are taken to be rooted in a territory, given shape by dynastic patronage, then spread by the course of empire. Art remains in the hands of craftsmen, however, and “style” is seen as located in a nexus between region and patronage. The consequences of these assumptions have been left for others to consolidate, but the resonance and vitality of the scheme gives shape and reference to all information collected in this work.