Hey guys, I really want to talk to you guys
today about the Hindu architecture and not
just the architecture of the city it’s self
or the homes that are built there, but the
architecture for the temples where the Hindus
worshiped, or Hinduism.
As you can see here on this very first slide,
we have two very extremes of what Hindu temples
could look like.
We can see the very modern, you know remake
of these temples.
They're very bright, they’re very colorful
they're made with all these intricate design,s
and statues of the Gods and Goddesses that
they worship.
As you can see on the other side in the teal
colored box is a photo of the older temples.
The ones that were just made from stone.
They didn’t use mortar which was a fun fact
which we will get into a little bit more later,
but as you can see there is two very different
extremes here.
If we move on to the next slide, let’s get
a little bit into the Hindu background.
Hinduism is you know approximately 4,000 years
of age.
It’s one of the oldest living religions
in the world right now, or that we know of.
The Hindu Gods that people worshiped are like
Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Krishna, and Devi.
Just to name a few.
Theres thousands of Gods these people believe
exist, who they worship.
These temples are used not to really worship
the Gods, but they're for offering.
People go there to offer their you know offerings
to the Gods, and thats where they typically
take them.
Each God is required their own temple.
Down on the bottom the Mundeshwari is a temple
only devoted to offering you know possessions
to Devi.
Moving on to the next slide we have the temple
inspirations.
So they are influenced by structures like
the Stupa, which is the Buddhist Shrine.
The very dome shapes, kinda high points.
Inspirations for the temples have always been
this design of tall mountains, so these temples
were not just put into a field or free standing
at all.
They were cut from mountain sides.
That was just one solid rock at one point.
They didn't have specialized bricks that made
the walls.
There may be separate pieces from stones they
cut away, and were added later, but for the
most part the foundations of these things
were carved; and they typically did this with
other stones.
That’s why we call it a stone cut cave,
or a stone cut temple.
So in the previous picture we saw.
the Mundeshwari which was the you know temple
of Devi, and it was also the very first freestanding
temple, and thats why it looks so different
compared to the other ones we see that were
stone cut which were these huge magnificent
buildings.
Compared to newer modern free standing temples
its really tiny.
Moving on to the design features.
Temples were designed with the eight cardinal
directions in mind.
North, South, East, West, and everything in
between.
Each direction kind of represents the time
of day, or a specific god.
So temples were called Vastu Shastra, or the
Mountain Meru and they called them these because
well they looked like mountains as you can
see in the very first pictures on this slide.
There were these really tall peaked buildings
that stood like mountains to anything around
them.
That was to show these Gods that this is what
we're offering you, the mountains were offering
you these large incredible objects.
At the heart of these temples sits the garbhagriha,
or the shrine room.
These shrine rooms weren't there to have these
huge congregations or these big ceremonies
for worshiping this God.
It was there for you to lay your offerings
to them.
The cut out as you can see in this picture
to the side.
Its just one big cut out, right in the center
of this huge magnificent elegantly carved
piece of stone.
These carvings included things, pictures of
the Gods or the story of what the God did.
Like things thats were related to the Gods.
So some of them carried spears or some of
them carried coins.
Some of them carried flowers, and things specific
to those Gods were typically carved in the
stone to represent like a solidified, forever
being offered to these Gods.
