page_title: Hindu temple architecture
section_title: The builders
hierarchical_section_title: Hindu temple architecture / The builders
caption_attribution_description: Door_Desavatara Deogarh
context_page_description: Hindu temple architecture as the main form of Hindu architecture has many varieties of style, though the basic nature of the Hindu temple remains the same, with the essential feature an inner sanctum, the garbha griha or womb-chamber, where the primary Murti or the image of a deity is housed in a simple bare cell. Around this chamber there are often other structures and buildings, in the largest cases covering several acres. On the exterior, the garbhagriha is crowned by a tower-like shikhara, also called the vimana in the south. The shrine building often includes an circumambulatory passage for parikrama, a mandapa congregation hall, and sometimes an antarala antechamber and porch between garbhagriha and mandapa. There may further mandapas or other buildings, connected or detached, in large temples, together with other small temples in the compound.
  Hindu temple architecture reflects a synthesis of arts, the ideals of dharma, beliefs, values and the way of life cherished under Hinduism. The temple is a place for Tirtha—pilgrimage.
context_section_description: The temples were built by guilds of architects, artisans and workmen. Their knowledge and craft traditions, states Michell, were originally preserved by the oral tradition, later with palm-leaf manuscripts. The building tradition was typically transmitted within families from one generation to the next, and this knowledge was jealously guarded. The guilds were like a corporate body that set rules of work and standard wages. These guilds over time became wealthy, and themselves made charitable donations as evidenced by inscriptions. The guilds covered almost every aspect of life in the camps around the site where the workmen lived during the period of construction, which in the case of large projects might be several years.
  The work was led by a chief architect (sutradhara). The construction superintendent was equal in his authority. Other important members were stonemason chief and the chief image-maker who collaborated to complete a temple. The sculptors were called shilpins. Women participated in temple building, but in lighter work such as polishing stones and clearing. Hindu texts are inconsistent about which caste did the construction work, with some texts accepting all castes to work as a shilpin. The Brahmins were the experts in art theory and guided the workmen when needed. They also performed consecration rituals of the superstructure and in the sanctum.
  In the earliest periods of Hindu art, from about the 4th century to about the 10th century, the artists had considerable freedom and this is evidenced in the considerable variations and innovations in images crafted and temple designs. Later, much of this freedom was lost as iconography became more standardized and the demand for iconometry consistency increased. This "presumably reflected the influence of brahman theologians" states Michell, and the "increasing dependence of the artist upon the brahmins" on suitable forms of sacred images. The "individual pursuit of self-expression" in a temple project was not allowed and instead, the artist expressed the sacred values in the visual form through a temple, for the most part anonymously.
  The sponsors used contracts for the building tasks. Though great masters probably had assistants to help complete principal images in a temple, the reliefs panels in a Hindu temple were "almost certainly the inspiration of a single artist".
caption: Dashavatara temple sculpture at Deogarh, completed about 500 CE.
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