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The Hindu Temple v1.c8.s3: 1. Citi, the Altar

The Hindu Temple v1.c8.s3

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1. Citi, the Altar

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Consistent in its completeness and appearance, the Prāsāda is yet not of one origin as is the Vedic altar. Its socle or 'base' (adhiṣṭhāna, pīṭha, etc.), the covered and enclosed chamber (garbha-gṛha) and its superstructure, the support of the finial, are the three main architectural parts in the vertical direction, each of which refers to a different source⁴³. Yet so thoroughly were these parts amalgamated that they constituted the Hindu temple throughout India for about a millennium and a half in preserved structures; a continuous sequence of forms in the various provinces to which each has given its particular impress, whether in its most imposing monuments or unassuming wayside shrines.

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A temple may be approached through one or several, carved and pillared halls, and it may be surrounded by subsidiary shrines and buildings; it may be the centre of an entire temple town, with walls and gate towers, itself of great height and many storeys. Yet the constituent parts of the Prāsāda and its Garbhagṛha remain the same⁴⁴.

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On the massively packed socle (pīṭha), alike to the altar, the Citi, which is piled on the ground or Vedi, rest the walls (bhitti) of the Garbhagṛha. Their lowermost part is also called Vedi or Vedikā⁴⁵. It has a number of horizontal

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⁴³ The superstructure, of many origins and the most prominent part of the complete temple, seen historically, is not indispensable. Flat roofs (chādya), however, do not belong to the perfect, i.e., complete, type of a Hindu temple; they show it in its making and are separately dealt with in Vāstuśāstra (see Part VII). Another type of temple, illustrated in the reliefs of Barhut, etc. was known in various types by 100 B.C. approximately. This was an open pillared hall, rectangular or round, with or without a second storey, and always with a sloped roof, either in the shape of a dome, or of a vault, etc. The forms of parts only of this open, pillared temple, built in the main of wood, were integrated in the Hindu temple as represented by preserved structures.

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⁴⁴ The small space within the cube of its walls, the Garbhagṛha, is the most elementary of the ancient and preserved types of temple, in India. It was used by Hindus and Buddhists in the Gupta Age, as far as monuments exist to-day, and by aboriginals, at any phase of their megalithic or generally pre-historic, non-historic, undated mode of worship. The socle is known as Adhiṣṭhāna in South Indian texts, 'Tantrasamuccaya', I, II, 37; 'Kāśyapaśilpa', X, 1, and as Pīṭha, in the 'Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra', LXI. South Indian texts use also the following synonyms: Masūraka, Ādyaṅga, Kuṭṭima, Vastvādhāra (I.P. III, Ch. XXX. 66).

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In Orissa, the lowermost part of the wall is called Pābhāga (N. K. Basu, op. cit. p. 184). the foot of the wall. It corresponds to the Vedikā. The socle there is called Piṣṭa (pīṭha).

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The entire structure moreover of certain temples rests on a wide terrace (Kaṭi, Jagaṭi; Pl. I; Part VII, first chart, and note 21) and more than one building may rise from one and the same terrace. Another name of the Jagaṭi is Pīṭhika or Jagaṭi-pīṭha ('Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra', LXVIII. 4. and 35). After the planning of the temple, with its ground plan (saṃsthāna), vertical section (unmāna) and its special architectural form (lakṣaṇāni) the Jagaṭi should be devised correspondingly (cf. ib. 12). Its width is given in proportion to that of the Prāsāda; assuming the latter to be 8 padas it is 28 padas (Ch. LXIX. 41-42) or, in another mouldings; they continue the theme of the Pīṭha or socle with its horizontal mouldings. Below the socle moreover a sub-socle or pedestal (upapīṭha) is piled in some temples and adds to their height. In these lower parts of the temple, the pedestal, Adhiṣṭhāna, the socle, and the Vedikā is embodied the memory of the sacred ground (vedi) with its piled altar (citi) whence the sacrificial offerings were carried up by the flaming fire. The place of the flame is now taken by the structure on its socle; it arises with perpendicular walls and a pointed superstructure. Neither the form of the socle with its horizontal mouldings nor that of the temple on it imply a derivation from the form of the Agni or its flame; but it is the knowledge of these rites which survives in architectural forms. Even in some of the last buildings in which a living tradition was at work, such as the temple of the Sun at Koṇārak in Orissa (thirteenth century), or its contemporaries in Mysore or in a twelfth century temple in Rajputana, and in earlier temples in Central India, Rajputana and Gujerat, the memory survives, on the walls of the socle and the Vedikā, of the substance of which the altar was built; wherein had been placed the heads of the sacrificial victims, man, horse, also the Śarabha (‘Aitareya Brāhmaṇa’, I. 6. 8. 6), and the other ‘animals’. It was cemented with a mixture to which these sacrificial animals had contributed. Rites are remembered and, as it were, crystallise in this instance on the surface of the temples in the shapes of men, horse, other animals and the Kīrttimukha, which are carved in horizontal bands around their socle.⁴⁶ The living memory of the Fire Altar however has not only remained at the

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⁴⁶ Adhiṣṭhāna is usually translated as base. If there is an Upapīṭha, the Adhiṣṭhāna is above it; so to be accurate, it cannot be rendered as “base”. The word means “a stand” and is translated here as “socle”; the Upapīṭha or pedestal is an optional member of the temple, whereas the Adhiṣṭhāna is an essential part; Orissan shrines however are generally without it.

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instance (ib. 52-53) 32 padas ; the width of the outer path for circumambulation (bhrama) of the temple is given as 4 padas.

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⁴⁵ As a railing fences in the sacred ground, so does the corresponding portion of the wall (vedi, vedikā) of a structure. In this sense it is an ‘enclosing’ wall (Coomaraswamy, ‘Yakṣas’, Pt. I, p. 22). The term Vedi is thus not used for a definite architectural shape; it indicates its relative lower position in the whole structure. It denotes also the lower portion of any vertical unit, such as those of the Bhūmis or storeys ; (‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’, LXII ; ‘Mānasāra’, XXII). Vedi is also the name of the highest part of the trunk of a North Indian Śikhara ; the superstructure of the temple. In this application the meaning of sacred ground or altar prevails. On this ‘High Altar’ is placed the finial of the temple (see note 47). The name for the enclosure or enclosing wall around the whole sacred precinct, etc. is Prākāra.

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Two types of figures are to be discerned on the socle, etc. and vedikā; either a row of heads only or of whole figures; the latter are shown in motion, each with its own particular activity and movement. Horses run, men make war, or love, etc.; they are restored to their own sphere of activity in this Saṃsāra (see Part VIII) at the base of the temple. Memory as embodied in traditional, sacred architecture does not mechanically repeat former contents; they are remoulded with every remembrance. Hence, not only their variety, but also their manifold substitutions. The ‘heads’ of the various animals are summed up by one kind of head only, that of the Face of Glory, the Kīrttimukha, the Grāsa, for instance on the Devī Jagadambā temple, Khajurāho, etc. In Ramgarh (Kotah State) the following are carved on successive fillets of the socle, in vertical succession: (1) Kīrttimukha, (2) Elephant, (3) Lion, (4) Horse, and (5) Man. In northern Gujerat, the face of the socle (pīṭha) is carved with a series of enrichments of its horizontal fillets: the Grasapaṭṭa, with the head of the Kīrttimukha, in ceaseless repetition; the Gajathara, the elephant course, which is not essentially present; the Aśvathara and Narathara, courses of horses and of men respectively (J. Burgess—H. Cousens, bottom of the temple, where the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala represents its main residue, coterminous as it is actually or in principle with the Vedi, the total site, or with the extent of the Prāsāda. Reiterated in name, elevated in position and meaning, on a higher level of the temple, once more, the name Vedi is given to the upper portion of its superstructure, the Śikhara,⁴⁷ on which is placed its crowning part the Āmalaka and then the finial. This Vedi may be called the Uttara Vedi of the temple.

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⁴⁷ The Vedi or Vedibandha is one quarter of the height of the Śikhara. This refers to the curvilinear Śikhara in the early texts. 'Matsyapurāṇa', CCLXIX. 15-20; 'Garuḍa Purāṇa', I. XLVII. 1-5; 'Agnipurāṇa', XLII. 17-18 and CIV. Other proportions are given in the 'Matsyapurāṇa', ib. 8-14, and in later texts (Part VII). Vedi is also the name of the respective portion of a Rekhā temple in Orissa; N. K. Bose, 'Canons of Orissan Architecture' p. 92.

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On the Vedi of the site, on the sacrificial ground, the raised 'altar' of the temple, its socle, etc. and Vedikā, with their mouldings are the firm and horizontal theme and basis from which the building of the temple arises, dedicated as an offering. When this offering is built up and about to reach its end, once more, in a supreme effort, the final offering is made on the high Vedi, the upper portion of the massive pile of the superstructure; above it are the Āmalaka or the High Temple,⁴⁸ and the finial above these.

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⁴⁸ Re. Āmalaka, see Part VIII. Āmalaka is a flattened cogged stone; Re. the 'High Temple', see Parts VI and VII. The Āmalaka and the cupola (Śikhara) of the High Temple are equivalent 'crowns' of the superstructure. Meaning and origin of the Āmalaka are more complex than that of the High Temple (Vimāna, harmya). The Āmalaka is generally placed above curvilinear northern Indian Śikharas; the High Temple (vimāna) above the Bhūmis or storeys of the pyramidal superstructure of South India. The High Temple is a miniature shrine, solid and having a massive domed roof (called "Śikhara"); it was a domed shrine originally.

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The Vedic altar survives in the structure of the body of the temple, in its lowest and its highest part. In technique and name the Prāsāda, the Hindu temple, shares in the name of the Vedi and Citi. Its total structure moreover, when seen from outside has the appearance of a massive pile, and is a monument more than a building. The thickness of the walls of the Garbhagṛha, and the often nearly compact superstructure, also reveal that the entire Prāsāda is a Citi.⁴⁹ This is

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⁴⁹ The walls occupy three quarter of the total area of the temple ('Matsyapurāṇa', Ch. CCLXIX, 1 ff.). In later temples, the walls are built in two shells; their interior is solidly packed with horizontal blocks of stones, laid in courses (M. M. Ganguli, 'Orissa and Her Remains', p. 145) or the space is filled with loose boulders or dry rubble (H. Cousens, 'Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan', p. 6), etc. These replace the almost 'cyclopean' walls of the temples preserved from the 4th to the 9th centuries. No reference is here made to the double walls, with an inner Pradakṣiṇā, Andhakārikā, or ambulatory of the temple type called Sāndhāra; see Part VII. In brick temples, the massive superstructure is modified according to structural exigencies. In Gujarati works on architecture, 24 varieties of Śikharas are described built either with a brick core or hollow (Burgess—Cousens, 'Architectural Antiquities of Northern Gujarat', ASWI.,

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'Architectural Antiquities of Northern Gujerat', ASWI. vol. IX. p. 25); cf. also the Pīṭha of the Someśvara Temple in Kiradu, Mewar, Rajputana, 12th century. In Thoda, a frieze of Haṃsas is added on the top of the others (ASI. Vol. VI. p. 124); Rows of Haṃsas and Makaras are frequent also on the socle of temples in Mysore. The Kīrttimukha or Grāsa and the face of the Śarabha are the same type (see Part VIII). Makara and also Haṃsa belong to the imagery of the Kīrttimukha.

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confirmed by its very names, Prāsāda, Sadma, Sadanam, derived from or identical to the word Sādanam itself which denotes the piling of the Vedic altar.

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It is thus as a Caitya⁵⁰ that the exterior of the temple, the Prāsāda, is proportionate in its measurement (vimāna) and the object of being looked at (darśana).

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⁵⁰ Caitya is derived from Citi. A Caitya, in the Buddhist application, with reference to a man-made form, is the Stūpa. The meaning of Caitya, in the ‘Mahābhārata’, where the country is described full of Caityas and Yūpas (sacrificial posts) is sacrificial altar. The ‘Rāmāyaṇa’, II. 3. 18; II. 25. 4; II. 71. 41, speaks of Devāyatana and Caitya. Āyatana means a resting place or support and as such a seat, the place of the sacred fire, and also an abode of divinity. The definite sense of ‘house’ seems conveyed by the word Caityagṛha (‘Rāmāyaṇa’, V. 12. 14); it is commented as ‘Buddha-āyatanaṃ’ or, acc. to Govindarāja, as a Maṇḍapa of Catuṣpathas, a hall of Vedic Brāhmaṇas. The Caityaprāsāda again which had 100 pillars and was very high, is commented as a Buddhamandira and in the latter instance, by Govindarāja, as a building like a Devāyatana. (‘Ind. Antiquary’, XI. p. 20). Coomaraswamy, ‘Yakṣas’, Pt. I. pp. 17-27, shows that a Caitya and Āyatana is a ‘bhavana’, a haunt or abode of a Yakṣa. This can be an altar or a constructed temple, or also a sacred tree, or a tree with an altar.

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Vol. IX, p. 2). In its upper part the Śikhara is frequently altogether massive. The massiveness or the degree of the hollowness of the Śikhara and also of the foundation of the terrace on which stands the temple depend upon various technical solutions. Raised platforms built on a cell foundation similar to those at Sirpur, are also below the sixth century temples at Bhitargaon, built of brick, and the stone temples at Deogarh and Nachna Kuthara. The stone Śikhara is built generally by corbelling (kadalikā-karaṇa; ‘Tantrasamuccaya’, I. II. 47), of courses of cut stone overlapping each other inside, until they meet and close the opening. It is covered by the horizontal plate (skandha) which forms the platform on top of its trunk.

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The stones or bricks filling the upper portion of the Śikhara rest on a horizontal tie-plate. It is called ‘ratna muda’, in Orissa; a lower horizontal tie-plate, the ‘garbha muda’ forms in some temples the ceiling of the Garbhagṛha (Pl. facing p. 120, in N. K. Bose, op. cit., showing the ruined Rekhā temple at Telkupi, Manbhum, with its inner construction laid open). When however the Śikhara is hollow, the Āmalaka (śilā) and Kalaśa finial serve to lock the heads of the walls together.

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The Śikhara of the Liṅgarāja temple in Bhuvaneśvar, Orissa, has at least one internal chamber above the flat roof of the Garbhagṛha. It is accessible by a steep staircase built through the thickness of the sides of the Śikhara; above this internal chamber, which has a window, a third similar chamber is said to exist. (R. D. Banerji, ‘History of Orissa’, Vol. II. p. 360). These internal spaces have no part in the effect or symbolism of the Prāsāda; they are technical devices for lessening the weight of the superstructure; the same purpose serve the great trabeate arches in the sides of the Śikhara and which are closed up by an ‘antefix’, the Śukanāsā. See also Part VI, note 65.

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The Mahābodhi temple of Bodh-gayā, the temples at Konch and Boram (Bihar) (R. D. Banerji, ‘The East Indian School of Mediæval Sculpture’, ASI, I. S. 1933; Pls. 83, 85), Parauli, U. P. (ASIAR, 1929-30, Pl. V), etc., have also hollow chambers in the superstructure which differs in plan and section in these buildings. If, as in the Mahābodhi temple, the chamber was accessible from outside, it is a residue of a phase of temple building (Lad Khan Temple, Aihole; Pārvatī temple, Nachna Kuthara), where the form of the superstructure had not as yet consolidated.

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Medhātithi on ‘Manu’, IV 39, refers to a structural building, of the type, may be, of the little domed temples as shown in the reliefs of Barhut, etc.

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Caitya, Āyatana, Prāsāda, etc., etymologically and originally are piled up seats or altars, sanctuaries in the open and also within an enclosed space.

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In certain buildings the massively piled socle of the temple rests on a pedestal or sub-socle (upapīṭha) of considerable height and the walls of the temple are set on a double sub-structure; the socle projects from the Mānasūtra and gives a broad basis to the building.

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Hence brick, Iṣṭakā, has remained the principal building substance of the temples, for the wooden log or the stone beam is considered and treated as Iṣṭakā. It is put to the same use, for the same purpose, as the brick (iṣṭakā), which is derived from the radical ‘yaj’, to sacrifice or to offer and is the original sacrificial substance (Part IV). In this connection it becomes clear why the true arch has not been employed in the Prāsāda, nor even in the halls, Maṇḍapa, accessory to it.⁵¹ The method of corbelling (kadalikā-karaṇa) and the trabeate arch are adjustments of the process of piling, necessitated first of all by the internal chamber, the Garbhagṛha in the body of the Prāsāda and also by the larger halls, added to the Prāsāda.

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⁵¹ The true or radiating arch built of voussoirs has been employed, although on a restricted scale in various brick buildings only, hitherto excavated; in Bhitargaon, Nalanda (Monastery, IX. No. 10), Mirpur Khas, Brahmanabad, the Mahābodhi temple in Bodh-gayā, etc. in porches, vaults of passages, monastic halls, etc., cf. Coomaraswamy, HIIA, p. 73, n. 4.

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The several mouldings of the socle (adhiṣṭhāna) project each in proportion to its own height beyond the Mānasūtra, (the side of the wall of the Prāsāda, externally). Jagatī and Kumuda have each a projection equal to their own height, while other profiles, such as Paṭṭikā, Padma, etc. may project each as much as their own height, or ¾, ½, or ¼ of it only. This is left to the discretion of the architect (‘Tantrasamuccaya’, I, II. 16). Jagatī, in this context, is a projection of the socle, and not the whole terrace on which the temple may be set up (see note 44). Jagatī as a part of the Adhiṣṭhāna is also dealt with in the ‘Vaikhānāśāgama’, ch. VI.

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In no type of the temple however is the ‘citi’ as substantially part of the entire conception as in the terrace-temples, excavated in Pahārpur in Bengal (c. 8th century, ‘Memoir, ASI, No. 55, p. 7 f), and Ahicchatra, near Rampur, Bareilly, in the United Provinces, dating from the fourth to the tenth and eleventh century (note 117). In these large and spreading brick structures the super-imposed terraces, of which there are three or more, recede successively forming a stepped pyramid from whose centre arose the walls of the shrine.

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