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Practice, Research and Advancement in South Asian Design and Architecture (PRASADA)

Books

These books that explore temple architecture and culture in India are the result of many years of research in this field.Theory and Practice of Temple Architecture in Medieval India

A book cover showing a large red stone temple

Full title: Theory and Practice of Temple Architecture in Medieval India: Bhoja's Samaranganasutradhara and The Bhojpur Line Drawings

Author: Professor Adam Hardy

Date published: August 2015

Publisher: Dev Publishers and Distributors

ISBN-10: 9381406413
ISBN-13: 978-9381406410

A book about vastuvidya or architectural theory, the creation of temples, and the role of drawings as an indispensible bridge between the two. It focuses on two worlds attributed to Bhoja, the legendary Paramara rule of Malwa in the first half of the eleventh century. The first of these is his vastly ambitious, but unfinished, royal temple at Bhojpur with its unique set of architectural drawings engraved in the surrounding rocks.

These beautiful drawings, documented here for the first time, provide insights into construction processes and glimpses of hitherto unknown temple forms. They also hold the key to the intended design of the Bhojpur temple itself, which would have been by far the biggest Hindu temple in the world.

Theory and Practice of Temple Architecture in Medieval India is available to buy on Amazon.

The Temple Architecture of India

A book cover showing a light coloured stone temple in India.

Author: Professor Adam Hardy

Date published: November 2007

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

ISBN-10: 0470028270
ISBN-13: 978-0470028278

Indian temples represent one of the great architectural traditions of the world. Built for Hindu, Buddhist and Jain worship, they are without parallel in the way that they combine direct sensuous appeal with a highly complex formal structure.

This volume explains the principles and processes underlying the designs of these monuments, providing essential historical background and placing the architecture in its cultural and religious context. It traces the origins and formation of the two classical architectural ′languages′ of India – the northern Nagara and southern Dravida – and their extraordinarily varied development during the great age of temple construction between the 6th and 13th centuries.

The book surveys the continuing vitality of these systems up to the present, and explores the lessons that can be learned from them by architects and artists today.

The Temple Architecture of India is available to buy on Amazon.