The Hindu Temple v1.c8.s8.2

v1.c8.s8.2

India not only thinks in images. It builds them up in a consistent body of which the sum total is the temple. It takes them from the store house of memory; similar forms once used in sacred rites meet, fuse, are absorbed the one in the other and contribute their particular meaning to the new context. The small space of the Garbhagṛha is extracted from various confines and placed within the walls of the Prāsāda. The dolmen, from the aboriginal side, has been incorporated into the Prāsāda and raised on a socle (adhiṣṭhāna) so that it is ensconced within its mountainous shape, and similarly, from the Vedic tradition, the sacrificial shed¹¹⁸, as an enclosed ritual place, shares in its closeness as much as the images of the cave in the mountain, of the heart and the womb.