Tirthas: Thin Places | Dana Westring Online Exhibition

In the middle of what at first glance appears to be the small town of Chidambaram, there is a temple called Nagaraja a huge pilgrimage site. Nagaraja is the King of Dance—nata means “dance” or “performance,” and raja literally means “king”—and the dancing god is honored here by many sanctuaries of dark and crowded halls. Temple names are often difficult for Western ears to take in. It is because they are actually like sentences. They can start with an honorific or a description of the place, next a deity, and followed by a location or patron. Sold

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The main temple at Hampi is called Virupaksha. Its towers are visible from miles away and it is a very active, crowded pilgrimage site resting on the flat land below a vast roll of golden granite. I sat with my back against a boulder on this escarpment with my drawing board on my knees and worked on a large watercolor for several hours. The shadows of the curious upright boulders leaning across my painting seem to dwarf the temple in the background. Sold

The temple at this ninth-century site is called Moovar Koli, “three temples,” and is all that remains of what must have been a wealthy town. Two temples are still standing, but the third in the row is gone except for its foundation. About a quarter mile away is another foundation for a much larger temple. These are simple, perfect pavilions built for Shiva. £4,200

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A few miles southeast of Mumbai, by way of a winding road through miles of residential tower developments, scrappy semi-industrial areas, and open fields full of lilac-colored hibiscus, there is a lovely ancient mountain temple complex called Karla. At the top of the 350 steps is a series of Buddhist caves. Some are temples and others were carved as dormitories for monks. The most important second-century temple, the Great Chaitya hall, has a beautiful narrow vestibule with figurative panels framing the entrance and a sun window—a huge arched opening cut into the face of the cliff to let light flood the interior. Life-sized carvings of elephants stand guard at both ends of the forecourt. The space has what is called an “elephant ceiling”—a barrel vault with deep ribbing imitating wooden construction methods used before stone-cut temples evolved. Many stylistic elements of temples like this one are in fact based on wooden models. It’s interesting because the vaulting, of course, doesn’t serve a structural purpose, but shows a curious vestigial remnant from ancient timber temples. The earliest wooden temples had thatched roofs, wooden beams, and bamboo columns. £4,500

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In the middle of Bhubaneswar city, there is an eleventh-century temple compound called Brahmeswar. The temple has a big tank on the south side with some shallow terracing between it and the temple walls. Brahmeswar has a lintel-topped entrance, small corner pavilions, and one tall central tower without a porch. £6,000

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The Konark Sun Temple is about forty-five minutes north of Puri. It was built in the mid-thirteenth century and abandoned in the seventeenth. The temple was built using a then-new engineering scheme that set iron rods and beams into the stone. Until this new method was adopted, temples had been built by interlocking block work and relied on gravity and the sheer mass of stone to stand. The iron probably seemed like a good idea as it added strength and rigidity. However, in not too many years, the iron began to rust and spall. Konark was on the coast very near the water and the added stress of the salt spray caused the iron to begin failing quickly. The massive temple began to collapse with the shifting of stone caused by the swelling and weakening of the iron embedded in the walls. The main tower, which was about 230 feet tall, collapsed completely. Much of the main structure’s stone was simply pilfered through the centuries after the temple was abandoned, and its sculpture looted. £4,500

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The caves at Ellora are registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site and recognized as one of the most magnificent archaeological relics on Earth. Though carved only with simple axes and chisels, they survive to humble us in their sophistication and grandeur. £1,200

The Ajanta Caves sit along cliffs above a dry riverbed. In the rainy season, water cascades over the faces of some of the caves and the chasm at the bottom of the gorge churns and roils with the runoff. These caves were very early Buddhist monasteries. They were begun around 200 BCE and had periods of abandonment and renewal until about the seventh century CE, when work stopped and the Buddhist communities disappeared. The caves vary from very simple, deeply cut entrances with blocky columns opening into fairly low-ceilinged chambers to breathtaking, airy interiors with elaborately carved square columns and astonishingly painted ceilings and walls. £3,000

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Ellora’s caves were carved from the fifth to the tenth centuries and are numbered (consecutively, not chronologically), although there are traditional names connected to some of them. They are a mix of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain tradition. Several temples have deep forecourts and it’s difficult to imagine their scale. Cave 15 has a beautiful freestanding pavilion in front of it. The main cave has two tiers of six columns separated by a thick slab of flat-faced stone. The dividing slab is about four feet thick. The height of the horizontal openings is probably close to ten feet and the width of the whole facade must be sixty feet. All of this is chiseled out of the granite of the cliff. £1,800

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The Mukteshvara Temple is set in the narrow streets of Bhubaneswar's old city. The little temple is probably the most important site in Bhubaneswar. The architecture is almost a miniature version of the other temples in the city and was the first in a new style that evolved here. It has a unique feature, which is a horseshoe shaped chaitya arch. This beautiful gate stands inside the compound at the entrance of the main temple. The slender red flag of Shiva waves in the breeze above the low dome noting that the temple is a living site of worship. A small tank next to the main temple is believed to bring fertility to pilgrims. £5,500

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Ellora’s caves were carved from the fifth to the tenth centuries and are numbered (consecutively, not chronologically), although there are traditional names connected to some of them. They are a mix of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain tradition. The most extraordinary temple is Cave 16, and called Kailasa by tradition. It is a huge, intricately carved temple with high gray walls standing behind it from which it was carved, nothing built. You enter the temple through a strange chamber that hints at the marvels to come but doesn’t really prepare you. Every surface is embellished with carvings of deities and the dizzying effect of the size and complexity is stunning. The fact that the entire object before you is cut from a monolithic stone formation is hard to comprehend. It’s not possible to call it a structure because it’s carved. It’s a vast sculpture. The scale and ambition of the carving take your breath away. Life-sized elephants line the rear face of the temple, carrying the structure on their backs. £5,800

The Vittala complex at Hampi was built in the early sixteenth century, away from the city center and toward the boulders and fortifications surrounding the city. It was a gift from the king to his second wife, who had been a temple dancer. Dancers held an important place in the temple rituals and many temples had pavilions for their performances. The pavilion is elaborately carved with lace-like delicacy and has some very special qualities. The huge stone roof is held up by ranks of columns with narrow bays of octagonal columns resting on the common base. These slender columns hold the magic of the place—this pavilion is really a giant musical instrument. The columns are carved from beige/pink granite, and are actually tuned like instruments. If you rap on them, they ring. Royal musicians stood by each column, playing complex music to accompany the dancers. Today, for a tip, the temple guards might rap on the columns, sending bell-like tones through the space. Elsewhere in India, there are temples where the music and directions for dances are carved into courtyard walls, but in this pavilion, you can hear the music too. £5,200

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