Lecture :Symbol and Metaphor: The South Indian Temple by Champaka Lakshmi at The Leela Galleria, The Leela Palace, MRC Nagar, on October 31 at 6 pm.

• 

CHENNAI : Temple is not just a religious monument, it is an institution with multiple roles, according to Champaka Lakshmi, former professor at JNU, who has specialised in religion, ideology, state and society. Giving us an outline of her upcoming talk at Leela Galleria, she says, “Temples are not just what people understand it to be — places of worship. Architecture and iconography of a temple represent various ways of symbolising political power, societal organisation and religious interaction.”

The lecture is an attempt to situate art and architecture in their social context through an integrated approach, using all the related sources, the monuments, their iconography, the temple inscriptions and  literature, mainly the bhakti and hagiographical, the Agamic canonical texts and the vastu shastras.

In her 45-minute talk, she will elaborate on how temples have evolved in a series of processes — historical, political and economics.

 “These reforms happen in different forms everywhere, however, I chose South India, because it presents one of the excellent examples of the evolution of temples and iconography,” she says.

 “If you look at the narrative sculptures in Mamallapuram during the Pallava period, they are metaphors for royal power and warrior ability,” she adds. 

Thrivikrama panel in Mamallapuram and Tripurantaka in Tanjore are other examples. She adds that the forms seen on temples are dependent on the king who developed it. According to Champaka Lakshmi, monuments in pre-colonial South India were only temples. “Secular monuments were just not there till the Vijayanagara period.

 There might have been monuments made of bricks and perishable material, but excavations haven’t brought them out,” she says. 

Attend the talk Symbol and Metaphor: The South Indian Temple by Champaka Lakshmi at The Leela Galleria, The Leela Palace, MRC Nagar, on October 31 at 6 pm.

For details, call, 9941012385

By Naveena Vijayan

Express: 25th October 2014 06:04 AM