Aesthetics Vs. Meaning Part I: The Importance of Hindu Architecture

The Perspective Heaven

Any student of architecture with reasonable skills in photography knows by instinct upon entering the precincts of an Islamic monument like the Taj Mahal, Agra, or the Bibi Ka Maqbara, Aurangabad that he has landed into perspective heaven.

The perspective here is easily coaxed out of almost any angle. Point the camera in the right direction and the perspective lines are ready-made. The beautiful gardens with many layers of fountains, water passages, shrub lines, and footpaths straddle throughout the monument.

The parallel and perpendicular lines that run across the precincts provide the third dimension to the photograph by creating depth in space. The geometrical designs crisscross in perfect symmetry in and around the monument framing it in a ready-made perspective from many angles.

Most of the Islamic monuments in India and abroad, much like their Renaissance counterparts were built from this aesthetic perspective. They were created to dazzle and impress the visitor with grandeur and power. They were built for beauty and beauty alone. Aesthetics is what drove them. Much thought went into creating them so that they would look perfect from every angle.

This is not just true of the Indo-Saracenic or the Mughal monuments in India. Taj Mahal is not the only one with the beautiful perspective lines. Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, Buland Darwaza in Sikri, the tombs of the Barid Shahi Kings at Bidar, and the Bibi ka Maqbara in Aurangabad are all built on the concept of perfect geometrical symmetry built to please the eye.

And this is where the Hindu temple differs from them.

In Search of Meaning

Of course, the Hindu temple is also built to please the eye. There is no art in India which violates the basic principles of aesthetics. Indian craftsmen were always well-versed in the universal principles which went into creating a piece of art that pleased the senses.

But this is not where they stopped. Beauty or aesthetics was the means, but it was not the goal of Indian art. The goal of Indian art was to transcend the beautiful, transcend what merely looked good to the eye. The goal of Indian art was to transport the viewer to the higher planes of consciousness. Coomaraswamy says:

‘Just as Professor Masson-Oursel has pointed out, ‘Indian art is aiming at something quite other than the copying of Nature. What we assume, quite superficially, to be the inspiration of art for art’s sake, really proceeds from religious scholasticism that implies a traditional classification of types established by convention. If here or there a relief or painting exhibits some feature drawn from life, it is only accidentally that the artist has, in spite of himself, transcribed something from actual Nature: and this is certainly, from the indigenous point of view, the least meritorious part of his work.’ Those who wish to study the ‘development’ of Indian art must emancipate themselves entirely for the innate European tendency to use a supposedly greater or less degree of the observation of Nature as a measuring rod by which to trace stylistic sequences or recognize aesthetic merit. Indian art can only be studied as showing at different times a greater or less degree of consciousness, greater or less energy; the criteria are degrees of vitality, unity, grace, and the like, never of illusion. (Transformation of Nature… 117)

He makes it clear that aesthetics is incidental to Indian art; it is never its primary goal. The primary goal is to guide the devotee towards the Ultimate Truth.

The Hindu temple is most certainly beautiful. Anyone who has ever laid his eyes upon the majesty that is the Kailashnath, Ellora; or looked upon the stupendous achievement that is the Brihadeeswar, Thanjavur; mused about the sheer will power and beauty personified that is the Kandariya Mahadeva, Khajuraho; or wondered about the caves of Elephanta, will swear that there is seldom anything in the Hindu temple that is not beautiful.

But the Hindu temple does not stop there. Beauty is a side product, but not the end goal of the Hindu temple.

One will find perspective lines in the Hindu temple too. Not as many and not as readily available to the camera as they do in an Islamic monument, but they are available. They are not the entire point thought. Ritual symbolism is always more important to Hindu architecture than symmetry. And thus you will find the temple pond always on the Ishana Kona of any temple which is absolutely not mirrored on the Agneya or the Nairittya side.

Symmetry is not the point here. Similarly, the Hindu temple grows organically, and different parts of the temple mirror different needs and symbolize different meanings.

So the perspective lines do exist in the Hindu temple but as soon as you approach the structure your eyes start deciphering structures within the structure, temples within temples, rathas within rathas, gavaksha within gavaksha, shikharas upon shikharas, motifs decorated with miniature motifs.

There is action everywhere. You become mesmerized with a war scene and just then your eye flits to another scene nearby in which a couple is in an amorous embrace. Then your eye catches the beauty and the relaxed poise of the Vishnu in tribhanga just nearby.

Once again your eye flits across and you see a Shiva Dakshinamurthy. In between, there are swans, elephants, horses, makaras, and other animals. There are doorways within doorways. Monoliths with a thousand individual sculptures carved in it. Look away and you discern a Puranic story being portrayed, an aspect of Rama’s or Krishna’s life portrayed.

You soon become overwhelmed. The Hindu temple is all action and yet it leads towards ultimate inaction inside the garbha-griha. But the outer walls are all action. It is designed to not let your eyes rest at one place. It is designed to make the disciple view the samsara in all its ephemeral avataras; to realize that all that is worldly will disappear and is impermanent.

The Hindu temple is not passive. It actively tells stories. It imparts meaning to every part of its structure; it tells stories and teaches deep truths with every figure of its sculptures.

There is no icon, no niche, no part of the Hindu temple which does not exude meaning and this meaning always leads to the realization of the Ultimate Truth, represented in its fullest by the deity in the garbha-griha.

While a mosque or a tomb is nothing more than beautiful, with its beauty lying in its social use and its historical details, the Hindu temple lends itself to many purposes, but most of all it readily and passionately lends itself to meaning, meaning which is not directionless but which guides the devotee towards the Ultimate Truth.

The intention of the creators of these great temples was never missed upon the audience that visited them. The rules that governed the concept and creation of the temple also went to condition the mind and the behavior of the devotee too.

Everyone who visited the temple had a certain expectation from it, and this expectation was neither aesthetic nor intellectual. The devotee came to the temple for having ‘darshana’ of the deity, for finding meaning in life and in the temple, as Coomaraswamy once again stresses:

“…whereas we make an aesthetic emotion the first and final end of art, medieval man was moved far more by the meaning that illuminated the forms than by these forms themselves…” (Christian and Oriental… 111)

The meaning is not just confined to the sculpture that adorns its walls or to the vigraha in the garbha-griha. The structural parts of the architecture also convey meaning. There is nothing purely decorative in the Hindu temple. Every piece of sculpture and every structure of the building conveys some meaning, tells some story. To a Hindu architect the adjective ‘decorative’ sounds pejorative, as Coomaraswamy explains:

“The product was not called “art”, but an “artifact,” a thing “made by art”; the art remains in the artist. Nor was there any distinction of “fine” from “applied” or “pure” form “decorative” art. All art was for “good use” and “adapted to condition”. Art could be applied either too noble or to common uses but was no more or less art in the one case than in the other. Our use of the word “decorative” would have been abusive as if we spoke of a mere millinery or upholstery: for all the words purporting decoration in many languages, referred originally not to anything that could be added to an already finished and effective product merely to please the eye or ear, but to the completion of anything with whatever might be necessary to its functioning, whether with respect to the mind or the body: a sword, for example, would “ornament” a knight, as virtue “ornaments” the soul or knowledge the mind.” (Christian and Oriental… 111-112)

The meaning in a Hindu temple exudes from the plan of the elevation, from the material that is used in the walls, and which is used to fashion the vigraha. The meaning is there in the Utsava Murti of the temple, but also in the rituals that are being followed. The meaning is in how the deity is worshipped; how the priests worship; and how the devotee has darshan.

The Hindu temple is beautiful, but it also transcends beauty. The Hindu temple is aesthetic, but it goes beyond it. The Hindu temple is a representation of the cosmos, but its meaning goes beyond even the cosmos and leads towards the timeless and the eternal; the Ultimate Consciousness.

The goal of the Hindu temple is not to impress its visitor by its architectural magnitude or even by its sculptural beauty. Its goal is to elevate the consciousness of the devotee, to transport him to higher planes of consciousness. The Hindu temple, like all other Hindu sciences, is a means to reach higher stages of consciousness. It is a means for self-realization.

At first look, it seems surprising that something as concrete as architecture can transport someone to sublime heights of philosophy, but the Hindu temple does just that. And it has developed special techniques to achieve that.

Authored by Pankaj Saxena. Published by IndicaToday.