11-19-2004, 05:28 AM
http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/colum...cid=255067
Ramana, you were looking for this article
<b>The Church and The Temple</b>
Subhash Kak
Published on Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Accessed 4465 Times
My art-historian colleague, Rikki Scollard, is puzzled by the parallels between the Hindu/Buddhist temple and the Catholic Church. Here's a list she has drawn up:
Angels Apsaras
Saints Sants
Halos Halos
Catacombs Cave-temples
Cathedral floor plan Chaitya hall floor plan
Rosary Rosary
Orders of priests/nuns Orders of monks/nuns (in Buddhism)
Repetition in prayer Repetition in prayer
Symbolism of wheel Symbolism of wheel
Tree of life Tree of life
Use of relics Use of relics (Buddhism)
Temptation of Jesus by Satan Temptation of the Buddha by Mara
Circumambulation Circumambulation
When French missionaries, Hac and Gabet, visited Lhasa in 1842, they were astonished by how similar Buddhist ritual was to the Catholic: "The crozier, the mitre, the chasuble, the cardinal's robe, ⦠, the double choir at the Divine Office, the chants, the exorcism, the censer with five chains, the blessing which the Lamas impart by extending the right hand over the heads of the faithful, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, their separation from the world, the worship of saints, the fasts, processions, litanies, holy water -- these are the points of contact which the Buddhists have with us."
I was reminded of the atmosphere in an Indian temple on a visit to a Greek Orthodox Church on an island near Athens, especially in the use of candles, incense and the profusion of images of saints.
<b>Historians have been aware of these similarities for a long time. Some have argued that the early Christian ritual was born out of the then prevailing religious practices in the Near East and Buddhism may have served as the prototype. </b>
Temples, as sacred spaces, are found in all ancient cultures. The parallels between the ancient temples of India and Greece (for example, Delphi in Greece and pilgrimage centers described in the Puranas) may be due to mutual borrowings, evolution from a common heritage, or a consequence of universal archetypes.
There is ample evidence of trade and interaction between the West and India going back to the third millennium BC. The Sumerians looked east for their spiritual homeland and Indus seals have been found in Mesopotamia. In an earlier column on Sulekha, I described the Indic element in West Asia in the second millennium BC.
<b>The Hindu Temple </b>
For the clearest articulation of the philosophy behind temple design we must turn to Indic sources. According to the Sthapatya Veda (the Indian tradition of architecture), the temple and the town should mirror the cosmos. The temple architecture and the city plan are, therefore, related in their conception. There exists a continuity in the Indian architectural tradition. The Harappan cities have a grid plan, just as is recommended in the Vedic manuals. The square shape represents the heavens, with the four directions representing the cardinal directions as well as the two solstices and the equinoxes of the sun's orbit.
A late example of a city designed according to the Vedic precepts is Jaipur. Vidyadhara, who designed the plan of the city, used the pithapada mandala as the basis. In this mandala of nine squares that represents the universe, the central square is occupied by the earth. In the city, which consists of nine large squares, the central square is assigned to the royal palace. The astronomical monuments of Maharaja Jai Singh II may also be seen as embodiments of the Vedic altars.
The monument that has been studied most extensively for its cosmological basis is the Vishnu temple in Angkor Wat. The temple served as a practical observatory where the rising sun was aligned on the equinox and solstice days with the western entrance of the temple, with many sighting lines for seasonally observing the risings of the sun and the moon. The detailed plan embodied numbers from Hindu cosmology, of which 108 is most significant.
The number 108 represents the distance from the earth to the sun and the moon in sun and moon diameters, respectively. The diameter of the sun is also 108 times the diameter of the earth, but that fact is not likely to have been known to the Vedic rishis. This number of dance poses (karanas) given in the Natya Shastra is also 108, as is the number of beads in a rosary (japamala). The "distance" between the body and the inner sun is also taken to be 108, and the number of marmas in Ayurveda is 107. The total number of syllables in the Rigveda is taken to be 432,000, a number related to 108.
The number 360, the number of days in the civil year, is also taken to be the number of bones in the developing foetus, a number that fuses later into the 206 bones of the adult. The primary Vedic number is three, representing the tripartite division of the physical world into the earth, the atmosphere, and the sky and that of the person into the physical body, the pranas, and the inner sky.
The Hindu temple represents the Meru mountain, the navel of the earth. The Brihat Samhita lists the many design requirements that the temple building must satisfy. For example, it says "the height of the temple should be double its width, and the height of the foundation above the ground with the steps equal to a third of this height. The sanctum sanctorum should be half the width of the temple" and so on. It also lists twenty types of temples that range from one to twelve storeys in height.
<b>Vedic Altars </b>
In my book The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda and elsewhere, I have shown that the Vedic altars had an astronomical basis related to the reconciliation of the lunar and solar years. The fire altars symbolized the universe and there were three types of altars representing the earth, the space and the sky. The altar for the earth was drawn as circular whereas the sky (or heaven) altar was drawn as square. The geometric problems of circulature of a square and that of squaring a circle are a result of equating the earth and the sky altars.
The fire altars were surrounded by 360 enclosing stones, of these 21 were around the earth altar, 78 around the space altar and 261 around the sky altar. In other words, the earth, the space, and the sky are symbolically assigned the numbers 21, 78, and 261. Considering the earth/cosmos dichotomy, the two numbers are 21 and 339 since cosmos includes the space and the sky.
The main altar was built in five layers. The basic square shape was modified to several forms, such as falcon and turtle. These altars were built in five layers, of a thousand bricks of specified shapes. The construction of these altars required the solution to several geometric and algebraic problems.
Two different kinds of bricks were used: the special and the ordinary. The total number of the special bricks used was 396, explained as 360 days of the year and the additional 36 days of the intercalary month. Two kinds of day counts: the solar day, and tithi, whose mean value is the lunar year divided into 360 parts. Considering the altar by layers, the first has 98, the second has 41, the third has 71, the fourth has 47 and the fifth has 138. The sum of the bricks in the fourth and the fifth layers equals 186 tithis of the half-year. The number of bricks in the third and the fourth layers equals the integer nearest to one third the number of days in the lunar year, and the number of bricks in the third layer equals the integer nearest to one fifth of the number of days in the lunar year, and so on.
The number of ordinary bricks equals 10,800 which equals the number of muhurtas in a year (1 day = 30 muhurtas), or equivalently the number of days in 30 years. Of these 21 go into the garhapatya, 78 into the eight dhishnya hearths, and the rest go into the ahavaniya altar.
The main altar was an area of 7 1/2 units. This area was taken to be equivalent to the nominal year of 360 days. Each subsequent year, the shape was to be reproduced with the area increased by one unit.
A well-known altar ritual says that altars should be constructed in a sequence of 95, with progressively increasing areas. The increase in the area, by one unit yearly, in building progressively larger fire altars is 48 tithis which is about equal to the intercalation required to make the nakshatra year in tithis equal to the solar year in tithis. But there is a residual excess which in 95 years adds up to 89 tithis; it appears that after this period such a correction was made.
The 95-year cycle corresponds to the tropical year being equal to 365.24675 days. The cycles needed to harmonize various motions led to the concept of increasing periods and world ages.
The number of syllables in the Rigveda confirms the textual references that the book was to represent a symbolic altar. According to various early texts, the number of syllables in the Rigveda is 432,000, which is the number of muhurtas in forty years. In reality, the syllable count is somewhat less because certain syllables are supposed to be left unspoken.
The verse count of the Rigveda can be viewed as the number of sky days in forty years or 261 x 40 = 10,440, and the verse count of all the Vedas is 261 x 78 = 20,358.
<b>Temple Antecedents</b>
The temple is considered in the image of the Cosmic Purusha, on whose body is displayed all creation in its materiality and movement. The prototype of the temple is the Agnikshetra, the sacred ground on which the Vedic altars are built. The Agnikshetra is an oblong or trapezoidal area on which the fire altars are built. It has been suggested that the agnichayana sacred ground is the prototype, because in it is installed a golden disc (rukma) representing the sun with a golden image of the purusha on it. The detailed ritual includes components that would now be termed Shaivite, Vaishnava, or Shakta. In Nachiketa Agni, 21 bricks of gold are placed one top of the other in a form of shivalinga. The disk of the rukma, which is placed in the navel of the uttaravedi (the main altar) on a lotus leaf is in correspondence to the lotus emanating from Vishnu's navel which holds the universe. Several bricks are named after goddesses, such as the seven krittikas.
The temple is the representation of the cosmos both at the level of the universe and the individual, making it possible for the devotee to get inspired to achieve his own spiritual transformation.
Complementing the tradition of the Vedic ritual was that of the munis and yogis who lived in caves and performed austerities. From this tradition arose the Vihara, where the priests lived and the chaitya halls that also housed the stupa paralleling the uttaravedi. The rock-cut chaityas represent a surviving form of a tradition that was usually implemented using wood or brick. The later temple tradition is linked to the rock-cut chaityas and other wooden chaityagrihas that can only be conjectured.
The design of the chaitya is a forerunner to the design of a cathedral. Some see the chaitya as being derived from the Lycian temple, but its evolution from the Vedic altar-complex appears more natural. The chaitya hall that housed the stupa may be seen as a development out of the agnichayana tradition where within the brick structure of the altar were buried the rukma and the golden purusha. The image is placed in a perforated brick which encases it like a casket quite like the casket of the stupa with the relic within it.
Figure 2. Chaitya Cave 9 at Ajanta, a conjectural reconstruction of a wooden chaityagriha, painting of a wooden house in Ajanta, Chaitya Cave in Karli
The rock-cut temples preserve features of earlier structures that have not survived. For example, we see the pointed arch of the chaitya halls that is not seen in other monuments on the ground made of brick or stone until the 8th or 9th century. In the words of the art-historian, Susan Huntington regarding the Mauryan-period Lomash Rishi cave: "<b>The sophisticated woodworking techniques recorded in the cave makes it certain that ancient India had an elaborate and lengthy history of wooden architecture prior to the Maurya period, though some of the forms are only preserved then." </b>
Figure 3. Lomash Rishi Cave
The Temple Plan
The temple construction begins with the Vastupurusha mandala, which is a yantra, mostly divided into 64 (8 x 8) or 81 (9 x 9) squares, which are the seats of 45 divinities. Brahma is at the centre, around him 12 squares represent the Adityas, and in the outer circle are 28 squares that represent the nakshatras (Figure 4). The Vastumandala with its border is the place where the motions of the sun and the moon and the planets are reconciled. It is the Vastu in which the decrepit, old Chyavana of the Rigveda asks his sons to put him down so that he would become young again. Chyavana is the moon and Sukanya, whom he desires, is the sun.
Figure 4
In the basic Vedic scheme, the circle represents the earth and the square represents the heavens or the deity. But the altar or the temple, as a representation of the dynamism of the universe, requires a breaking of the symmetry of the square. As seen clearly in the agnichayana and other altar constructions, this is done in a variety of ways. Although the main altar might be square or its derivative, the overall sacred area is taken to be a departure from this shape. In particular, the temples to the goddess are drawn on a rectangular plan. In Shiva or Vishnu temples, which are square, change is represented by a play of diagonal lines. These diagonals are essentially kinetic and are therefore representative of movement and stress. They embody the time-factor in a composition.
The Hindu temple, as a conception of the astronomical frame of the universe, serves the same purpose as the Vedic altar, which reconciled the motions of the sun and the moon. The progressive complexity of the classical temple was inevitable given an attempt to bring in the cycles of the planets and other ideas of the yugas into the scheme.
The temple represents the outer and the inner cosmos. The outer cosmos is expressed in terms of various astronomical connections between the temple structure and the motions of the sun, the moon, and the planets. The inner cosmos is represented in terms of the consciousness at the womb of the temple and various levels of the superstructure that correspond to the states of consciousness.
The Buddhist temple and the Catholic cathedral do not consciously express the same range of details about the cosmos, but they are also supposed to represent the heavens. Vedic philosophy and ritual helps us understand the symbols behind the Buddhist and Catholic ritual. For example, it explains why the rosary has 108 beads. <span style='color:red'>For this no satisfactory explanation is provided within the Christian tradition</span>
Ramana, you were looking for this article
<b>The Church and The Temple</b>
Subhash Kak
Published on Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Accessed 4465 Times
My art-historian colleague, Rikki Scollard, is puzzled by the parallels between the Hindu/Buddhist temple and the Catholic Church. Here's a list she has drawn up:
Angels Apsaras
Saints Sants
Halos Halos
Catacombs Cave-temples
Cathedral floor plan Chaitya hall floor plan
Rosary Rosary
Orders of priests/nuns Orders of monks/nuns (in Buddhism)
Repetition in prayer Repetition in prayer
Symbolism of wheel Symbolism of wheel
Tree of life Tree of life
Use of relics Use of relics (Buddhism)
Temptation of Jesus by Satan Temptation of the Buddha by Mara
Circumambulation Circumambulation
When French missionaries, Hac and Gabet, visited Lhasa in 1842, they were astonished by how similar Buddhist ritual was to the Catholic: "The crozier, the mitre, the chasuble, the cardinal's robe, ⦠, the double choir at the Divine Office, the chants, the exorcism, the censer with five chains, the blessing which the Lamas impart by extending the right hand over the heads of the faithful, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, their separation from the world, the worship of saints, the fasts, processions, litanies, holy water -- these are the points of contact which the Buddhists have with us."
I was reminded of the atmosphere in an Indian temple on a visit to a Greek Orthodox Church on an island near Athens, especially in the use of candles, incense and the profusion of images of saints.
<b>Historians have been aware of these similarities for a long time. Some have argued that the early Christian ritual was born out of the then prevailing religious practices in the Near East and Buddhism may have served as the prototype. </b>
Temples, as sacred spaces, are found in all ancient cultures. The parallels between the ancient temples of India and Greece (for example, Delphi in Greece and pilgrimage centers described in the Puranas) may be due to mutual borrowings, evolution from a common heritage, or a consequence of universal archetypes.
There is ample evidence of trade and interaction between the West and India going back to the third millennium BC. The Sumerians looked east for their spiritual homeland and Indus seals have been found in Mesopotamia. In an earlier column on Sulekha, I described the Indic element in West Asia in the second millennium BC.
<b>The Hindu Temple </b>
For the clearest articulation of the philosophy behind temple design we must turn to Indic sources. According to the Sthapatya Veda (the Indian tradition of architecture), the temple and the town should mirror the cosmos. The temple architecture and the city plan are, therefore, related in their conception. There exists a continuity in the Indian architectural tradition. The Harappan cities have a grid plan, just as is recommended in the Vedic manuals. The square shape represents the heavens, with the four directions representing the cardinal directions as well as the two solstices and the equinoxes of the sun's orbit.
A late example of a city designed according to the Vedic precepts is Jaipur. Vidyadhara, who designed the plan of the city, used the pithapada mandala as the basis. In this mandala of nine squares that represents the universe, the central square is occupied by the earth. In the city, which consists of nine large squares, the central square is assigned to the royal palace. The astronomical monuments of Maharaja Jai Singh II may also be seen as embodiments of the Vedic altars.
The monument that has been studied most extensively for its cosmological basis is the Vishnu temple in Angkor Wat. The temple served as a practical observatory where the rising sun was aligned on the equinox and solstice days with the western entrance of the temple, with many sighting lines for seasonally observing the risings of the sun and the moon. The detailed plan embodied numbers from Hindu cosmology, of which 108 is most significant.
The number 108 represents the distance from the earth to the sun and the moon in sun and moon diameters, respectively. The diameter of the sun is also 108 times the diameter of the earth, but that fact is not likely to have been known to the Vedic rishis. This number of dance poses (karanas) given in the Natya Shastra is also 108, as is the number of beads in a rosary (japamala). The "distance" between the body and the inner sun is also taken to be 108, and the number of marmas in Ayurveda is 107. The total number of syllables in the Rigveda is taken to be 432,000, a number related to 108.
The number 360, the number of days in the civil year, is also taken to be the number of bones in the developing foetus, a number that fuses later into the 206 bones of the adult. The primary Vedic number is three, representing the tripartite division of the physical world into the earth, the atmosphere, and the sky and that of the person into the physical body, the pranas, and the inner sky.
The Hindu temple represents the Meru mountain, the navel of the earth. The Brihat Samhita lists the many design requirements that the temple building must satisfy. For example, it says "the height of the temple should be double its width, and the height of the foundation above the ground with the steps equal to a third of this height. The sanctum sanctorum should be half the width of the temple" and so on. It also lists twenty types of temples that range from one to twelve storeys in height.
<b>Vedic Altars </b>
In my book The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda and elsewhere, I have shown that the Vedic altars had an astronomical basis related to the reconciliation of the lunar and solar years. The fire altars symbolized the universe and there were three types of altars representing the earth, the space and the sky. The altar for the earth was drawn as circular whereas the sky (or heaven) altar was drawn as square. The geometric problems of circulature of a square and that of squaring a circle are a result of equating the earth and the sky altars.
The fire altars were surrounded by 360 enclosing stones, of these 21 were around the earth altar, 78 around the space altar and 261 around the sky altar. In other words, the earth, the space, and the sky are symbolically assigned the numbers 21, 78, and 261. Considering the earth/cosmos dichotomy, the two numbers are 21 and 339 since cosmos includes the space and the sky.
The main altar was built in five layers. The basic square shape was modified to several forms, such as falcon and turtle. These altars were built in five layers, of a thousand bricks of specified shapes. The construction of these altars required the solution to several geometric and algebraic problems.
Two different kinds of bricks were used: the special and the ordinary. The total number of the special bricks used was 396, explained as 360 days of the year and the additional 36 days of the intercalary month. Two kinds of day counts: the solar day, and tithi, whose mean value is the lunar year divided into 360 parts. Considering the altar by layers, the first has 98, the second has 41, the third has 71, the fourth has 47 and the fifth has 138. The sum of the bricks in the fourth and the fifth layers equals 186 tithis of the half-year. The number of bricks in the third and the fourth layers equals the integer nearest to one third the number of days in the lunar year, and the number of bricks in the third layer equals the integer nearest to one fifth of the number of days in the lunar year, and so on.
The number of ordinary bricks equals 10,800 which equals the number of muhurtas in a year (1 day = 30 muhurtas), or equivalently the number of days in 30 years. Of these 21 go into the garhapatya, 78 into the eight dhishnya hearths, and the rest go into the ahavaniya altar.
The main altar was an area of 7 1/2 units. This area was taken to be equivalent to the nominal year of 360 days. Each subsequent year, the shape was to be reproduced with the area increased by one unit.
A well-known altar ritual says that altars should be constructed in a sequence of 95, with progressively increasing areas. The increase in the area, by one unit yearly, in building progressively larger fire altars is 48 tithis which is about equal to the intercalation required to make the nakshatra year in tithis equal to the solar year in tithis. But there is a residual excess which in 95 years adds up to 89 tithis; it appears that after this period such a correction was made.
The 95-year cycle corresponds to the tropical year being equal to 365.24675 days. The cycles needed to harmonize various motions led to the concept of increasing periods and world ages.
The number of syllables in the Rigveda confirms the textual references that the book was to represent a symbolic altar. According to various early texts, the number of syllables in the Rigveda is 432,000, which is the number of muhurtas in forty years. In reality, the syllable count is somewhat less because certain syllables are supposed to be left unspoken.
The verse count of the Rigveda can be viewed as the number of sky days in forty years or 261 x 40 = 10,440, and the verse count of all the Vedas is 261 x 78 = 20,358.
<b>Temple Antecedents</b>
The temple is considered in the image of the Cosmic Purusha, on whose body is displayed all creation in its materiality and movement. The prototype of the temple is the Agnikshetra, the sacred ground on which the Vedic altars are built. The Agnikshetra is an oblong or trapezoidal area on which the fire altars are built. It has been suggested that the agnichayana sacred ground is the prototype, because in it is installed a golden disc (rukma) representing the sun with a golden image of the purusha on it. The detailed ritual includes components that would now be termed Shaivite, Vaishnava, or Shakta. In Nachiketa Agni, 21 bricks of gold are placed one top of the other in a form of shivalinga. The disk of the rukma, which is placed in the navel of the uttaravedi (the main altar) on a lotus leaf is in correspondence to the lotus emanating from Vishnu's navel which holds the universe. Several bricks are named after goddesses, such as the seven krittikas.
The temple is the representation of the cosmos both at the level of the universe and the individual, making it possible for the devotee to get inspired to achieve his own spiritual transformation.
Complementing the tradition of the Vedic ritual was that of the munis and yogis who lived in caves and performed austerities. From this tradition arose the Vihara, where the priests lived and the chaitya halls that also housed the stupa paralleling the uttaravedi. The rock-cut chaityas represent a surviving form of a tradition that was usually implemented using wood or brick. The later temple tradition is linked to the rock-cut chaityas and other wooden chaityagrihas that can only be conjectured.
The design of the chaitya is a forerunner to the design of a cathedral. Some see the chaitya as being derived from the Lycian temple, but its evolution from the Vedic altar-complex appears more natural. The chaitya hall that housed the stupa may be seen as a development out of the agnichayana tradition where within the brick structure of the altar were buried the rukma and the golden purusha. The image is placed in a perforated brick which encases it like a casket quite like the casket of the stupa with the relic within it.
Figure 2. Chaitya Cave 9 at Ajanta, a conjectural reconstruction of a wooden chaityagriha, painting of a wooden house in Ajanta, Chaitya Cave in Karli
The rock-cut temples preserve features of earlier structures that have not survived. For example, we see the pointed arch of the chaitya halls that is not seen in other monuments on the ground made of brick or stone until the 8th or 9th century. In the words of the art-historian, Susan Huntington regarding the Mauryan-period Lomash Rishi cave: "<b>The sophisticated woodworking techniques recorded in the cave makes it certain that ancient India had an elaborate and lengthy history of wooden architecture prior to the Maurya period, though some of the forms are only preserved then." </b>
Figure 3. Lomash Rishi Cave
The Temple Plan
The temple construction begins with the Vastupurusha mandala, which is a yantra, mostly divided into 64 (8 x 8) or 81 (9 x 9) squares, which are the seats of 45 divinities. Brahma is at the centre, around him 12 squares represent the Adityas, and in the outer circle are 28 squares that represent the nakshatras (Figure 4). The Vastumandala with its border is the place where the motions of the sun and the moon and the planets are reconciled. It is the Vastu in which the decrepit, old Chyavana of the Rigveda asks his sons to put him down so that he would become young again. Chyavana is the moon and Sukanya, whom he desires, is the sun.
Figure 4
In the basic Vedic scheme, the circle represents the earth and the square represents the heavens or the deity. But the altar or the temple, as a representation of the dynamism of the universe, requires a breaking of the symmetry of the square. As seen clearly in the agnichayana and other altar constructions, this is done in a variety of ways. Although the main altar might be square or its derivative, the overall sacred area is taken to be a departure from this shape. In particular, the temples to the goddess are drawn on a rectangular plan. In Shiva or Vishnu temples, which are square, change is represented by a play of diagonal lines. These diagonals are essentially kinetic and are therefore representative of movement and stress. They embody the time-factor in a composition.
The Hindu temple, as a conception of the astronomical frame of the universe, serves the same purpose as the Vedic altar, which reconciled the motions of the sun and the moon. The progressive complexity of the classical temple was inevitable given an attempt to bring in the cycles of the planets and other ideas of the yugas into the scheme.
The temple represents the outer and the inner cosmos. The outer cosmos is expressed in terms of various astronomical connections between the temple structure and the motions of the sun, the moon, and the planets. The inner cosmos is represented in terms of the consciousness at the womb of the temple and various levels of the superstructure that correspond to the states of consciousness.
The Buddhist temple and the Catholic cathedral do not consciously express the same range of details about the cosmos, but they are also supposed to represent the heavens. Vedic philosophy and ritual helps us understand the symbols behind the Buddhist and Catholic ritual. For example, it explains why the rosary has 108 beads. <span style='color:red'>For this no satisfactory explanation is provided within the Christian tradition</span>