Sacred Precincts, Towered Gateways, Subsidiary Shrines and Festival Pavilions in the Hindu Temples of Tamil Nadu.

Buckee, Fiona

Abstract

This essay discusses the origins and formal development of subsidiary architecture from the Hindu temple complexes of Tamil Nadu, South India. It explores the symbolisms that infuse and propel their evolving shapes, and the religious and ritual functions that the structures perform, making them important parts of the sacred sites for god and devotee alike. The essay will focus on four Tamil temple sites that contain exceptional examples of subsidiary architecture from different time periods: the Kailasanatha Temple at Kanchipuram (Pallava Dynasty, early eighth century); the Brihadishvara Temple at Thanjavur (Chola Dynasty, beginning of the eleventh century); the Ranganatha Temple at Shrirangam (Vijayanagara and Nayaka periods, fifteenth – seventeenth centuries ); and the Minakshi-Sundareshvara Temple at Madurai (Nayaka Period, sixteenth – seventeenth centuries).

Citation

Buckee, F. (in press). Sacred Precincts, Towered Gateways, Subsidiary Shrines and Festival Pavilions in the Hindu Temples of Tamil Nadu. In The Cambridge World History of Religious Architecture. Cambridge University Press

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 27, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 2, 2116
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Book Title: The Cambridge World History of Religious Architecture
• Keywords: Subsidiary Indian temple architecture, Tamil temple complexes, Hindu temple architecture, Pallava temple architecture, Chola temple architecture, Nayaka temple architecture, Kailasanatha Temple Kanchipuram, The Great Temple Thanjavur, Meenakshi Temple Madurai, Tamil temple ritual.