The Hindu Temple v2.c11.s9.9

v2.c11.s9.9

Prāsāda-Puruṣa is installed²⁰⁴ in the Empyrean below the Paramount Point of the finial. The temple as house and seat of God in which dwells His Essence is also His body; the temple contains the whole manifestation ('Mayamata', XVIII. 193) in which He is beheld as Puruṣa, Supernal Man. "The Prāsāda should be worshipped as Puruṣa" ('Śilparatna', XVI. 114). It is both, His house and representation.²⁰⁵ The several parts of the temple communicate His living presence and are likened to the body of man in the same way as the square of the plan and its partitions are the 'body' of the Vāstupuruṣa. The door is the mouth,²⁰⁶ the Āmalaka or the High Dome is the head; its Brahmarandhra or foramen²⁰⁷ is pierced so as to receive the tenon (kīla) of the finial (stūpikā). The image in the Garbhagṛha is the Life (jīva) of the temple concealed in the darkness of the cave, enclosed by the mountain of its walls. The outside of the bulwark, teeming with ordered shapes and figures, is its explicit form. The temple is conceived from inside and visualized from outside; the communication between inside and outside is brought about by the radiating power from within which assigns its place to each and every facet of the walls; the inner dark is extracted through closed doors and windows (Ghanadvāra and Gavākṣa) as a chiaroscuro which adheres to the Prāsāda extended in mid-space and facing all the directions. Tier upon tier in a solidified ascent, its bulk is reduced in the tapering superstructure and carried towards the Paramount Point.