The Indian Temple Traceries

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About the Book

The present monograph is unique in that it, for the first time, extensively treats the subject of Indian temple jalas or grilles together with an in depth discussion in the light of relevant medieval vastusastra passages in Sanskrit on Indian architecture. Besides identification, classification, and description of the different grille types as well as their forms, features, and ornamentation, it investigates their purpose and their relationship with the environment with the building of which each example is an integral part. It likewise traces the origins - or at least the earliest incidences - together with the development, wherever discernible, of the Indian grilles. While maintaining the thrust of writing towards the ancient and medieval Indian grilles, it brings within its purview the Islamic screens and the Gothic traceries for comparing and contrasting their characteristics with the earlier Indian. In the process, it also dwells on the factors of concept, form, and function and, above all, aesthetics. The visual appearance of the jalas developed in each of these three architectural systems considerably varies due to environmental, creedal, cultural, and hence stylistic differences.

The text of the monograph is elucidated by carefully drawn 55 line drawings and 348 photo illustrations. Being scholarly and, as a result, of academic disposition, it will not have the privilege of the company and prestige of coffee table books. It likewise cannot be a companion book for the iconographers who in India dominate the field of ancient art and pass as art historians, nor is it useful to the modernists and lovers exclusively of contemporary arts and literature. What is more, in orientation, treatment of theme, and the tenor of discussion, it adheres to the methodology of art history proper and, by the same token, not that of neoart interpretatory, a different and new discipline which their protagonists, the Newtrendians in the West and because of them the Newtrendianoids in India, claim and proclaim as 'New art history', just as they look down at the other/original one by qualifying it as conventional, traditional, old-fashioned, and outmoded. They are largely unconcerned about history and chronology, socio-religious and cultural background, and ignore style, inherent concepts, philosophy, metaphysics, and aesthetics.

About the Author

Professor M.A. Dhaky, currently Director (Emeritus) at the American Institute of Indian Studies (Center for Art and Archaeology), Gurgaon (Haryana), is a historian and researcher of ancient and medieval Indian art, architecture and historical archaeology as also of Sanskrit and Prakrit texts that relate to the architecture of the ancient buildings. Prof. Dhaky had served at the AIIS' Varanasi Center from August 1966, on deputation first from the Department of Archaeology, Government of Gujarat, and next, from 1974 onwards, from the L.D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, where till 1987 he was posted as the Research Professor of Indian Art and Architecture.

Among his publications are the short and long monographs and papers, chapters to the volumes of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture, and many research articles in English, Gujarati and in Hindi. Besides archaeological and art historical themes, he also writes on the history and chronology of ancient and medieval jaina literature (including the agamas, their commentaries, and ancient and medieval hymns) as well as has determined the dates of the famous authors of Nirgrantha-darsana/Jainism. Moreover, he has published articles and papers involving criticism and interpretation of art, architecture, as also musicology, horticulture, and gemology. Altogether, these writings number over 310. He also has participated in several national and international seminars and delivered lectures in a few prestigious lecture series.

He is recipient of several awards and honours: the 'Kumara' silver medal (Ahmedabad 1974), silver plaque with citation from the Archaeological Research Society, Porbandar (Porbandar 1974), an award of the Prakrta Jnanabharati, Bangalore (Bangalore 1993), the Campbell Memorial Gold Medal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay (Bombay 1994), the Hemacandracarya Award from Jaswanta Dharmarth Trust, Delhi (Delhi 1997), and an award with gold medal from Hemacandracarya Nidhi, Ahmedabad (Ahmedabad 1999). He also got two silver plaques, each with citation (Varanasi 1996 and Delhi 1998) from the American Institute of Indian Studies.

Foreword

It would be impossible for such a visually sensitive person as M.A. Dhaky to live in Ahmedabad without being impacted by the beautifully rendered traceries the adorn the city's fine Sultanate buildings. The best known and most often reproduced one is on Siddi Saiyyid's mosque, a virtual visual symbol of Ahmedabad, but there are many others as well. However, it was Dhaky who recognized that such traceries are not exclusive to Islamic architecture but are part of a much larger visual vocabulary that is shared among the multiple cultures that comprise India and serve to shape an Indian identity rather than an identity exclusive to any single religious tradition. Although Dhaky is best known for his brilliant work on Indian temples, he sets issues relating to traceries in a much larger environment, essentially in a global context as he draws upon Medieval European traditions to understand rich tracery forms.

One particular strength of this volume, as with much of Dhaky's other work, is the weaving of textual and visual tradition. And while it might appear to many that the verbal texts serve as a basis for the visual forms, in fact the two functions together to shape traceries through time and across the Indian subcontinent.

His fine introduction sets Indian traceries in their global context. He then considers the Sanskrit terms used for traceries. It might be interesting to note here the origin of the English, term, generally used for the fine stone work on a Gothic window. It is said to have been first used in writing by the architect Christopher Wren in the late 17th century; he described it as a mason's term, probably ultimately derived from the sense of a track, that is, the drawn basis for the ornate architectural form. That is quite different from the origins of the Sanskrit term jala or its variants that Dhaky describes in this chapter. He then provides us with extensive text extracts to show the verbal understanding of traceries at times closer to the production of the architectural traceries discussed in the volume. To show the relationship between textual references and actual designed traceries, Dhaky branches from the area for which he is so well known to discuss Islamic traceries from North Africa to South Asia and then to discuss Gothic traceries, not just in northern Europe- so often considered the heartland of the Gothic style-but also in Spain and Italy, showing an erudition that is most impressive.

It is with pride, then, that the American Institute of Indian Studies presents another publication by one of the most prolific scholars in any field and certainly the one who knows this tradition better and more deeply than any other scholar in the world.

Preface

I had started working on this short monograph soon after I came across and got photographed the various jalas-grille or screen types-while surveying the ancient and medieval temples during the late sixties and early seventies in the documentation programme undertaken by the American Academy of Benaras, Center for Art and Archaeology of the American Institute of Indian Studies since 1972. I was deeply fascinated by the richness and elegance of some of the examples I saw in certain areas and of certain periods and styles. The literary sources, particularly the corpus of the Southern Indian vastu literature which covers several published as well as unpublished works, concisely give information on their typological classes, their characteristics, and associated decorative as well as locational details. The textual studies helped identify the types met in association with the ancient and medieval buildings and lent insights into their formal concepts as well as visual formulations.

I then resolved to dedicate this monograph, when completed, to the memory of Dr. Moti Chandra whose sudden demise in mid seventies had shocked me profoundly. He possessed deep affection for me and was among the few leading art historians in India of those decades who laid stress on studying the cultural data in ancient Indian literature in Sanskrit as well as in Prakrit for understanding and identifying motifs, ornaments, representations et cetera and next interpreting Indian art. Dr. Moti Chandra, moreover, was a connoisseur just as a specialist in more than one field and was one of those few in the sphere of research whom I adored. He also was my guide for the Ph.D., University of Bombay. That is how the work had begun. The writing initially had progressed fast and the 'Introductory' as well as the next two chapters were almost finished. But, since 1977, I had to concentrate on writing chapters for, and coordinating, processing, and partially editing as also preparing the press-manuscripts of the different parts of the 'Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture,' resulting as they did from a project which was the prime undertaking of the American Institute of Indian Studies. It involved rigorous efforts, engaging all its resources, skills, and energies. This preoccupation as well as the prolonged and frequent documentation tours alongside the earnestness on focusing on the preparation of the initial parts of the Encyclopaedia, for long years did not leave freer time. It was only recently, in early 2001, that in leisure hours I could resume work on this monograph. My style of writing, in the intervening decades, somewhat had changed. For some years now, I have opted for a simpler genre in writing. As a result, I carefully and delicately had to dovetail and harmonize the earlier and the later written portions as far as was practical. In point of fact, I have allowed the earlier portion, particularly the Introductory, which luxuriates in style, to remain largely as it originally was.

Now, the jala, as a device, figures in the three major systems of architecture, namely Indian (just as Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian), Islamic (including Indo-Islamic), and Gothic. The last two chapters discuss the Islamic screens and the Gothic traceries, though of necessity had to be brief and sketchy since they, after all, were not the core-concern of the present monograph. The two were included here for comparing, but largely contrasting, their underlying intents, forms, and details, just as their overall appearance, aesthetic preoccupations, and visual impact with those of the temple traceries. My visits to the medieval Indian mosques from the fifties onwards and, to the churches in England and in France in the early eighties, prompted me to dwell upon these two very important categories of traceries on which very little is known in India. The brief coverage, of necessity, had to be based on the extremely selective material.

The intervening long hiatus that followed the initial collection of the photo-snaps of the temple traceries was not totally blank; for some significant example, indeed in fair number, could be added to the mass of photo-prints that till then had been built. From that fairly large lot, a sizeable number constitutes the illustrative part of this monograph.

The original file containing the till then drafted chapters of this monograph, however, for long was missing since misplaced and only recently, in early January 2001 to be precise, it accidentally was traced, which enthused me to revert to it for proceeding from the point I had left some two decades and a half ago and completing it. I am satisfied and happy that, at long last, it could be finished, of course not as ideally as I would have wished: However, it does now appear in print and, importantly, those who are seriously engaged in studying the subject of jala- they however, could be very, very few in number- will be able to judge how far it is useful.

Textual Conventions The transliteration system adopted here for rendering the Sanskrit words largely follows the international system except for the 'anusvara' which is rendered as 'm' instead of 'm', as in fact is the convention for long followed by the Archaeological Survey of India as well as most Indologists in India. For the Arabic and Persian words, the conventions of the standard dictionaries including the Encyclopaedia of Islam are adopted and for a few Tamilian syllables, the Epigraphia Indica (ASI) is here followed. The ancient and modern towns names have been provided with diacritical marks, but the provinces (states) names and districts and their headquarters names are left without them. In the main body of the text-part as also in the annotations, the Sanskrit words are not Italicised for rendering the reading process more facile. However, the short Latinic phrases, wherever used, appear in Italics. Likewise, in annotations, the titles of the published works are Italicised though not in the main text. In the main body of the text, the Sanskrit verses as well as extracts from Sanskrit vastu sources appear in Devanagari script, except in a couple of cases where they, in the earlier typing, had been rendered in Roman script and now allowed to remain in that form.

Illustrations Since it was not easy to obtain the photographs of Islamic screens of the monuments in Middle East and Maghreb, references were made to the published instances in the annotation section and a few examples of the earlier screens were drawn from the same sources. It applies to the Gothic traceries where, too, the examples had to be shown by drawings redrawn from the published line drawings and engravings. Some also were drawn from the published photographic illustrations. The same expedient likewise had been followed with regard to a few Indian instances: Some, in that area, have been reproduced directly from the works published long ago.

Contents

	Foreword Frederick Asher	ix
	Prefatory Note Janice Leoshko	xi
	Author's Preface	xiii
	Acknowledgements	xvii
1.	Introductory	1
2.	The Terminological/Semantic Considerations	17
3.	The Texts: Extracts from Sanskrit Sources	27
4.	The Textual and Actual Types	49
5.	The Islamic Screens	75
6.	The Gothic Traceries	85
	Epilogue	107
	List of Figures	111
	Figures	117
	List of Photo-Plates	171
	Comments on Plates	197
	Plates	251
	Glossary	467
	Bibliography	490