Digitizing Temple City of India: Bhū Bhuvar Swar

Abstract:

The name Vastu Purusha Mandala essentially consists of three parts – Vastu, Purusha and Mandala. Stella Kramrisch, in her monumental work and certainly one of the most authoritative on Hindu temple architecture, THE HINDU TEMPLE, explains these thus –

‘It is his body (sharira) and a bodily device (sharira yantra) by which those who have the requisite knowledge attain the best results in temple building, It is laid out in tabular notation as man (naraprastara) and site (vaastuprastara).

In the Purusha, Supernal man, the Supreme Principle is beheld. Beyond form and non-contingent, it is beyond description. It is known by intellectual intuition as residing in man, the microcosm, and in the universe, the macrocosm. Either is its place of manifestation. Man and Universe are equivalent in this their indwelling centre. Of this equivalence the Purusha is an image. In the Purusha, the relation of the Supreme Principle (Brahman) and of manifestation is seen as coterminous........It is the site indwelt, and pervaded by the Purusha.......By its impress that piece of land, freed of all associations acts as primordial, undifferentiated substance (Prakriti).’ 

Thus within the structure of the Hindu temple, and in the particular context of the magnificent temples in Bhubaneswar, the intangible co-exists with the tangible, rather, one may say, the subtle yet all-encompassing intangible is ensconced within the magnanimous tangible.