Hindu Art and Architecture

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Hindu art treats the image as a place where the divine can be present. A consecrated statue, or murti, is bathed and dressed, and worshippers come for darshan, the exchange of sight between devotee and deity. Sculptors built a vocabulary for recognising gods at a glance: Shiva with trident and matted locks, Vishnu with conch and discus, and Ganesha with an elephant's head.

A temple is imagined as the god's house and a cosmic mountain. In the north, the Nagara type climbs to a curved tower, as at the Kandariya Mahadeva temple at Khajuraho (about 1030); in the south, the Dravida type rises in stepped storeys, from the Chola temple at Thanjavur (1010) to later towering gateways. At Ellora in the 8th century, masons cut the entire Kailasa temple out of the hillside. Chola bronzes of Shiva as Nataraja, lord of the dance, balance movement inside a ring of flame. The tradition also reached Angkor and Java.