Masterpieces of Indian Temples (With 100 Plates, An Old and Rare Book)

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"The Indian temple, like the great cathedrals of Europe, is a phenomenon of an Age of masterpieces of Indian Temples traces the development of temple architecture in India from its remote origins, through the days of construct samples, still the decline of the art in the nighteenth century or so. In a general Introduction, the author traces the evolution of temple architecture, the varying architectural and sculptural modes in different periods and in different parts of the country, with special reference to important structures, and their sculptural values in the different regions, he also deals with injunctions laid down in the ancient Shastras as to the planning of a temple, how and where it was to be built and the materials of its construction, and finally tells of the temple in its social setting, its underlying spiritual con tent as a House of God."

All regions of the country are dealt with: the Gupta temples, Orissa, Central India, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Gwalior, the Jain temples of ML. Abu, Girnar, and Palitana, Kashmir and the North, the Deccan and the Western regions and Bengal, and finally the South the Land of Temples covering Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Malabar, through the periods of the Pallavas, the Chalukyas of Badami, the Cholas, the Pandyas, the late Chalukyss of Kalayani, the Hoysalas, the Rayas of Vijayanagar, and the Nayaks the dominant dynasties of the South in different periods and places.

The amazing variety of Indian temple architecture is clearly displayed in words and 100 superb plates a vast panorama of Indian religious art in all its glory. The Notes on the Plates, running to twenty-one pages, deal with each temple illustrated in sufficient detail. As the author says "A good reproduction of an architectural monument can best testify to its beauty, its grace and proportions, even its sculptural values, in a way no amount of words can make so clear or so graphic, If pictures can speak louder than words, let the hundred plates that follow speak of the glory that is gone, the skill and craftsmanship of India's dedicated masons and artists of old. To them temple architecture was the only available means through which to express, in terms of brick or stone, their intense yearning to identify themselves with the-Divine and plastic forms of a real concrete nature.

This is a book for every lover of art and architecture, every visitor to this country, every Indian proud of his vast cultural heritage.