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Hindu architecture

Traditional system of Indian architecture as described in Hindu texts

  • 10 min read
  • 11 chapters

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By far the most important, characteristic and numerous surviving examples of Hindu architecture are Hindu temples, with an architectural tradition that has left surviving examples in stone, brick, and rock-cut architecture dating back to the Gupta Empire. Far fewer secular Hindu architecture have survived into the modern era, such as palaces, homes and cities. Ruins and archaeological studies provide a view of early secular architecture in India.

Studies on Indian palaces and civic architectural history have largely focussed on the Mughal and Indo-Islamic architecture particularly of the northern and western India given their relative abundance. In other regions of India, particularly the South, Hindu architecture continued to thrive through the 16th-century, such as those exemplified by the temples, ruined cities and secular spaces of the Vijayanagara Empire and the Nayakas. The secular architecture was never opposed to the religious in India, and it is the sacred architecture such as those found in the Hindu temples which were inspired by and adaptations of the secular ones. Further, states Harle, it is in the reliefs on temple walls, pillars, toranas and madapams where miniature version of the secular architecture can be found.

Texts

Vaastu Shastras and Shilpa Shastras are listed as one of 64 divine arts in ancient Indian texts. They are design manuals covering the art and science of architecture, typically mixing form, function with Hindu symbolism. The earliest, archaic and distilled version of Hindu architecture principles are found in the Vedic literature, traditionally considered as the Upavedas (lesser appendices to the Vedas), and called the Sthapatya Veda. Acharya's Encyclopedia of Hindu Architecture lists hundreds of Sanskrit manuscripts with more details on Hindu architecture that have survived into the modern age. They cover the architectural aspects of a wide range of subjects: ornaments, furniture, vehicles (wagons, carts), gateways, water tanks, drains, cities, streets, homes, palaces, temples and others. The most studied texts in the contemporary era are Sanskrit manuscripts in different Indic scripts. These include the Brihat Samhita (chapters 53, 56–58 and 79), the Manasara Shilpa Sastra, the Mayamata Vastu Sastra with commentaries in Telugu and Tamil, the Puranas (for example, chapters 42–62 and 104–106 of Agni Purana, chapter 7 of Brahmanda Purana) and the Hindu Agamas.

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