The Hindu Temple v2.c11.s3.18

v2.c11.s3.18

Gavākṣa is usually rendered as “round window” or gable window.⁵⁸ But Gāvaḥ (plural of ‘Gauḥ’) are the rays of the sun (Sāyaṇa, on RV. VI. 64. 3).⁵⁹ The ray as well as the sun is called ‘gauḥ’. ⁶⁰ The first part of the term Gavākṣa means Sun or ray and ‘akṣa’, its second part, means axle, pivot, wheel, curve and eye. Ray-wheel or Sun-arch would be appropriate translations expressive of the symbolic function of the Gavākṣa on the Hindu temple.⁶¹ It is not to admit the rays of the Sun into the temple, for the ‘windows’ are closed and as solid a part of the wall as are the massive and impenetrable doors. They are not meant to conduct the light of the sun to the image within the dark Garbhagṛha; on the contrary, their original function as windows of the houses of man is negatived on the Hindu temple, the house and seat of God. He is the Light as He is the Door. The presence of the Devatā, the Shining one, sends forth his splendour in the darkness of the Garbhagṛha and upwards across the innumerable ‘ray-wheels’, ‘ray-eyes’, or ‘sun-arches’, the Gavākṣas, by which the body of the superstructure of the temple is covered. The retrovert sense of the Gavākṣa has the same paradoxical logic as the impenetrable door. The house of God is other than that of man; its parts though similar in form and name function in the opposite direction.⁶² The door is blocked and so is the window; they are parts of the massive body of the temple.