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Ground-plan of the temple of<br />
Sixty-Four Yoginis (Chausatti<br />
Yogini), Bheraghat, Madhya<br />
Pradesh, c. 12th century.<br />
86<br />
thus they participate, either directly or indirectly, in the concentric layout<br />
of the diagram. In this way all parts of a composition are connected<br />
with the central point. 20<br />
Yantras and mandalas also influenced the ground plans of Hindu<br />
temples and the lay-out of the cities. As early as the third century<br />
BC, the shape of the Buddhist stupa, originally a monument over<br />
the relics of the Buddha, was based on the circle and the square.<br />
Ground plans of later temples indicate that they were based on a<br />
regular arrangement of squares on a strict grid plan. The three<br />
principal geometrical shapes, square, equilateral triangle and circle,<br />
on account of their symmetry were related to each other as in a<br />
yantra diagram. In one of the earliest references in the manuals of<br />
architecture can be found the Vastu-Purusha mandala which<br />
according to that treatise can be drawn in thirty-two ways. The<br />
simplest one consists of a square, while all the others can be made<br />
from the division of the square into four, nine, sixteen, twenty-five<br />
and so on up to 1,024 small squares. In accordance with tantra's<br />
original thesis, the spatial orientation of the temples served to<br />
create a microcosm in the image of the macrocosm and its<br />
governing laws. While these are few examples of tantric influence<br />
on Indian art, further research has yet to bring to light all the<br />
aspects in which the tantric doctrines left a mark in this field.<br />
Image-making<br />
In tantric art, the image must correspond to the original canonical<br />
text; any omission, error or oversight is attributed to imperfect<br />
absorption or considered a sign of slackening of attention. In such<br />
an event, the image is discarded and the process of composing is<br />
deferred. The initial impetus to visualize is invariably provided by<br />
the dhyana-mantra, or the auditory equivalent which enhances<br />
concentration and functions as a trance-formula. For example, the<br />
trance-formula of the goddess Bhuvanesvari, one of the tantric<br />
dasa-mahavidyas, reads:<br />
I worship our gentle lady Bhuvanesvari, like the rising sun, lovely,<br />
victorious, destroying defects in prayer, with a shining crown on her<br />
head, three-eyed and with swinging earrings adorned with diverse gems,<br />
as a lotus-lady, abounding in treasure, making the gestures of charity and<br />
giving assurance. Such is the dhyanam of Bhuvanesvari.<br />
The artist's visualizations begin with mental construction and there<br />
is little attempt to find a syn-visibility in external models. For<br />
example, Shilpi-yogin has resolved the anthropomorphic image of<br />
Kali into a simple geometrical pattern - a triangle within a circle.