Attempts To Bridge The Gap Between Art History And Religion History By Placing Some Of The Greatest Monumnets Of Tamil Nadu Within An Appropriate Religion And Ritualistic Context. Richly Illustrated-Has Introduction And Comes Kanchipuram, Thiruvannamalai, Chidambaram, Srirangam And Madurai.
Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous American Architect wrote "Architecture is that great living creative spirit which from generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man, and his circumstances as they change. That is really architecture. As one of the oldest civilisations in existence, our nation proudly flaunts its wonderful temples and historic monuments. It is matter of great pride that our country houses architectural marvels from centuries ago. Basically temples can be considered as a contact between man and God. The msot wonderful part is that the rituals and ceremonies performed carried in the temples can be scientifically related to the temple architecture. Its amazing that even centuries ago our architecture was so much developed. Temples built thousands of year ago have a design based on sacred geometric diagrams (Mandala) -- symbolized as a miniscule image of the universe with its coordinated organized structure Tamil Nadu is well known for its magnificient temples and is populary known as 'land of temples' for its grand temples that are architectural masterpieces. With 30,000 plus temples constructed by rulers of different dynasties over the years temples of state of Tamil Nadu are standing testimony to the rich Dravidian art and culture with each one showcasing a distinctive wonderful style, built by Chola, Pallava, Nayak, Pandya and Vijaynagar rulers, who were great patrons of art and architecture.
How did the British colonial administration view the Tamil natives? How did the natives, in turn, view the colonial power brokers? Underscoring a transactional rather than one-way reality of colonial politics, The View from Below is a balancing act of scholarship. Kanakalatha Mukund considers the 'attitudes' and 'responses' as dialogic, whereby the colonial state and indigenous society are locked in a fierce but subtle combat for attention and dominance in the Madras region. The Tamil institution upon which Mukund focuses her study for the most part is the temple. Moving further on from this politically crucial and socially focal site, the study covers a number of other related phenomena: the staging of sectarian and caste conflicts aimed to seize the control of the temples; the new social leadership and patterns of patronage; the construction of identity by aspiring elite groups of both parties; and the folk representations of Poligar rebellions. This book will be useful to historians, anthropologists and specialists on South India, and those interested in the history of Madras.