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Indian art is highly symbolic. The art and architecture produced on the Indian
subcontinent dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. Therefore from that alone it can be
determined as to how culturally influenced it must have been. The basic mathematical
principals of VaastuShastra were also practiced. The form of the Hindu temple, the
contours of the bodies of the Hindu gods and goddesses, and the light, shade,
composition, and volume in Indian painting are all used to glorify the mystery that resolves the conflict
between life and death, time and eternity. 
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may have also been stimulated by (and influenced) Indian architectural designs ʹ (as in temple shikaras,
gopurams and corbelled temple ceilings). Of course, the relationship between geometry and
architectural decoration was developed to its greatest heights by Central Asian, Persian, Turkish, Arab
and Indian architects in a variety of monuments commissioned by the Islamic
rulers.

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The SamratYantra, at Jaipur, designed by Jai Singh, measuring 147 at its base
and 90 high could calculate time within two seconds accuracy per day.

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According to ancient architectural tradition, Hindu temples are symbols of models of the cosmos and
their form represents the cosmos symbolically. According to the Sthapatya Veda (the Indian tradition of
architecture), the temple and the town should mirror the cosmos. The temple architecture and the city
plan are, therefore, related in their conception.





 
 
 
   


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% Study shows that the instructions given in ancient Vastushastras (texts on architecture)
work like general programmes to generate various types of temples.  
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!+,--./000/00/"% An assumed equivalence between the
outer and the inner cosmos is central to the conception of the temple. It is because of this equivalence
that numbers such as 108 and 360 are important in the temple design. Following explains briefly why
108 and 360 are important.

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The ancient Indians were excellent mathematicians and 108 may be the product of a precise
mathematical operation (e.g. 1 power 1 x 2 power 2 x 3 power 3 = 108), which was thought to have
special numerological significance. They used the following practice of measurements.

j Powers of 1, 2, and 3 in math: 1 to 1st power=1; 2 to 2nd power=4 (2×2); 3 to 3rd power=27
(3×3x3). 1×4x27=108

j Sanskrit alphabet: There are 54 letters in the Sanskrit alphabet. Each has masculine and
feminine, shiva and shakti. 54 times 2 equals 108.

j Heart (Anahata) Chakra: The chakras are the intersections of energy lines, and there are said to
be a total of 108 energy lines converging to form the heart chakra. One of them, sushumna
leads to the crown (Sahasrara) chakra, and is said to be the path to Self-realization.

j aarmas: aarmas or marmastanas are energy intersections like chakras, except they have fewer
energy lines converging to form them. There are said to be 108 marmas in the subtle body.

j Time: Some say there are 108 feelings, with 36 related to the past, 36 related to the present,
and 36 related to the future.

j 108 names of the God/Goddess

j 108 dance poses in Classical Indian dance

j 108 beads in their japamalas. They implement the following formula:

6 x 3 x 2 x3 = 108; 6 senses [sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, thought]
3 aspects of time [past, present, future]
2 condition of heart [pure or impure]
3 possibilities of sentiment [like, dislike, indifference]

j 108 pilgrimages

j 10,800 bricks in the altar

That list goes on.

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The Rock-cut structures present the most spectacular piece of ancient

Indian art specimen. aost of the rock-cut structures were related to
various religious communities. In the beginning, remarkable Buddhist and
Jain monuments were produced in areas such as Bihar in the east and
aaharashtra in the west. Numerous caves were excavated by the Buddhist
monks for prayer and residence purposes. The best examples of this are
Chaityas and monasteries. Inside these rock-cut structures monks carved
windows and balconies and gates in the shape of huge arch shaped openings.
Rock-cut architecture occupies a very important place in the history of Indian Architecture. The rock-cut
architecture differs from traditional buildings in many ways. The rock-cut art is more similar to sculpture
than architecture as structures were produced by cutting out solid rocks. Let's have a look at various
specimen of rock-cut architecture in ancient India. Some prominent rock-cut structures of ancient India
are Chaityas, Viharas, temples etc.

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Chaityas and Viharas are those rock-cut structures that were hewn out for Buddhist and Jain monks. Chaityas were places of worship whereas Viharas were
residence of monks. The Buddhist and Jain monks usually stayed away from the towns therefore they developed Chaityas and Viharas in the hillside. Most
of the Chaityas and Viharas were constructed in western India. Some of the prominent places having Chaityas and Viharas are Karle, Nashik, Bhaja and
Kanheri. The rugged hills of the Western Ghats were naturally suited to the creation of living space in the hillside.

The most remarkable aspect of the rock cut architecture at Karle and other such sites is its close similarity to wood construction. Here, you will find great
imitation of every detail of wood in rocks. This throws light on the great skill of Indian craftsmen.

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The Rathas at Mahabalipuram are yet another great specimen of rock-cut architecture in ancient India. These Ratha temples at Mahabalipuram were
constructed during the reign of Pallava rulers. The Pallavas were founders of the Dravidian Style of temple architecture. At Mahabalipuram, scaled-down
replicas of actual temples (known as the Rathas of Mahabalipuram or the 'Seven Pagodas') were created. These rathas were sculpted out of monolithic
rocks. The Rathas are not very large, the biggest measuring 42 feet by 35 feet, and the tallest is 40 feet high. Most of the Rathas at Mahabalipuram are
modeled on the Buddhist Viharas and Chaityas.



 

Indian architecture is as old as the history of the civilization.
The earliest remains of recognizable building activity in the
India dates back to the Indus Valley cities. Among India's
ancient architectural remains, the most characteristic are the
temples, Chaityas, Viharas, Stupas and other religious
structures. In ancient India, temple architecture of high
standard developed in almost all regions. The distinct
architectural style of temple construction in different parts was
a result of geographical, climatic, ethnic, racial, historical and linguistic diversities.

The Rock-cut structures present the most spectacular piece of ancient Indian art specimen. Most
of the rock-cut structures were related to various religious communities. In the beginning,
remarkable Buddhist and Jain monuments were produced in areas such as Bihar in the east and
Maharashtra in the west. Chaityas and Viharas are those rock-cut structures that were hewn out
for Buddhist and Jain monks. Chaityas were places of worship whereas Viharas were residence
of monks. The Rathas at Mahabalipuram are yet another great specimen of rock-cut architecture
in ancient India.

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The Vedic language (later called as Sanskrit) was akin to languages of the European continent spoken by
tribesmen around 2000 B.C.E. The earliest surviving Sanskrit literature is the Rig Veda. As time went on
many of the words of the original language were forgotten and became obsolete. In 4th Century B.C.E.,
Panini (a grammarian in Takshashila) wrote a great grammar work in eight chapters called   
.
This standardization of the language resulted in a perfected language called ë&'
 (refined
language-anglicized as Sanskrit). This classical Sanskrit became the language of the priestly class and
later of the governing class. The popular dialect of the language that developed naturally was called as
'
 or '
, the unrefined language. '
 was the spoken language of India for almost a
thousand years between Buddha Period to the Gupta Period. The language of the edicts of Ashoka͛s
time was in '
. '
 had several regional dialects. The most popular in the North during Buddha͛s
period was 
. Several Buddhist texts were written in Pali. aagadhan Empire had a dialect called
$
. Another form was  &
(Half aagadhi) that became the sacred language of
aahavira͛s Jains. Other important '
 were ë 
and $ 
. Bengali and a language used
by Jains of Gujarat in the aiddle Ages called  & also are derived from '
. All of the
modern vernaculars spoken in Northern India today are direct descendents of Sanskrit and '
.

The South however developed its own languages, though Sanskrit influenced them, at a later date. The
main languages of the South are: Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Tulu and aalayalam. Collectively these are
called Dravidian languages (   ). Sanskrit naturally influenced Tulu, Kannanda and Telugu,
spoken, in more northern regions of the South, more than Tamil. aalayalam, which is closely related to
Tulu and Tamil, became a separate language in the 11th Century.

The script of the '
 language may be similar to the Harappa scripts, though those scripts have not
been deciphered. There are visual resemblances between the two scripts. There are no surviving
evidences of any scripts during the assimilation of the Vedas or Upanishads. The first evidence of written
script is seen at the Ashoka͛s inscriptions (written in ) &
Script). These are from the 3rd Century
B.C.E. The inscriptions written on stone pillars not only survived but also demonstrated a sophisticated
language of purely Indian descent and led to the belief that the written language had developed in India
long before this script. The written language was then spread far and wide, especially to South East Asia
during Ashoka͛s reign. Whether ) &
script is related to Harappa script or to the Semitic script is
controversial. Local variations to the ) &
script led to the practice of joining of letters and words
together with a line on the top of the letters, like that of today͛s Hindi script, and came to be known as
% 
script (script of the City of Gods). In the South written language flourished in the 5th and 6th
Centuries with the language taking a more spherical shape as in Tulu, Kannada and Telugu or the angular
Tamil.

Patanjali wrote a treatise on Panini͛s grammar. Another grammarian and lexicographer of fame was
Amara Simha from the 4th century C.E., the author of Amarakosha, a dictionary of synonyms written in
the form of poetry for easy memorization.

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The oldest surviving structures of

ancient India are its temples. It gives us a glimpse of the glory of architecture that was taken to its
summit with solid stone structures that even today stand as monuments to the richness of the
imaginations of the ancient Indians.

Glorious temples built by great dynasties of the past stand in proof of one of the greatest civilizations of
the world. Though temples have been built in the early history of India, none of them have survived as
they were built from wood and clay rather than stone. Cave temples were the first temples that have
survived for more than thousand years. Hindu temples were built in stone architecture from about 8th
Century on up to 16th Century, especially in the Peninsula. Ornate pillars with stone carved towers stand
as monuments of glory to their builders. As the North was already under the influence of the auslim
rule, the independent South took the lead in building glorious architectural masterpieces dedicated to
the gods of their belief.

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' & 
Earliest temples that have survived today are mainly the cave temples. Starting from the aauryan
period with their simple designs, the cave temples began to be more complex and sophisticated as time
went on. Intricately sculpted pillars, animals and godheads were carved in solid rocks, frequently on
hillsides, systematically from front to back and top to bottom. Some glorious sculptures such as the
+  or chariots for gods were carved from single freestanding rocks (monolithic).

The most famous of the cave temples

are in ,, where there are no less than twenty seven caves that were first carved on the hillside as
early as 2nd Century B.C.E and as late as 7th Century C.E., depicting mainly Buddhist teachings. About
thirty miles north is the massive -
 caves, where there are about thirty-four caves, carved between
5th and 8th Centuries C.E. The Rashtrakuta emperor, Krishna I (757-773 C.E.), built the great .

temple here. Also in the 7th Century C.E. seventeen rock-cut temples were built in $&&
(aahabalipuram), near Chennai by the Pallava kings. Narasimhavarman II Rajasimha added the famous
Shore temple in aamllapuram around 700 C.E. The famous seven pagodas are seen here. In an island off
the shores of aumbai one can see the cave temple called as the -   caves. The colossal
Trimurthy figure of Shiva is carved in one of the caves.
 Pallavas built temples in
aamallapuram and the Kailasanath temple in Kanchipuram in the 6th and 8th Centuries. .
 
 & 
.
& has a pyramidal tower like a stupa (of Buddhism) over the shrine. The Chalukyas
were busy with their own temples in )&


 ' Two remarkable temples in
Pattadakal were built by two sisters in commemoration of the victories of their husband,
ChalukyaVikramaditya II over the Pallavas. These are the aallikarjuna and Virupaksha temples of
Pattadakal. The ", temple in Chidambaram was built between 6th and 8th Centuries. The great
) 

  & 
c, was built by RajarajaChola (985-1014). His son, RajendraChola built
the temple near .&'
&. Both these temples contain elaborate pillars and halls with beautiful
designs. In addition they have glorious pyramidal towers (ë
' or /
&) of carved stone, rising two
hundred feet into the air over the sanctum sanctorum ( 
). The  kings, who supplanted
the Chola dynasty, built fortified temples with colossal towers at the entrance way (called the 
&)
rather than over the shrine itself. They added to  temples or built new ones as in $
and in
ë
&.

At the same time the #


%
& (11th to 14th Century C.E.), built temples of a different
style in ) and # 
and later in ë
& . These were temples without the entrance towers and
shaped in a polygonal or stellate form rather than the rectangular base. Beautiful carvings of stone were
incorporated in the walls and ornate stone pillars surrounded the inner hall. The famous ë

'
(stone-woman) can be seen here with all the intricately carved details. The Vijayanagara Empire (14th to
16th Century) contributed to the art of temple building with the /
 temple in #&
with its
exuberantly carved pillars and decorative imagination unsurpassed. Krishna Deva Raya was also the
builder of temple in Kanchipuram. Vijayanagara Empire also added a tower (
&) to the temple at
Belur at a later date to commemorate the defeat of auslims. The "' after the decline of the
Vijayanagara Empire built the bulk of the great temple complex of $
dedicated to $ '
, the
consort of Shiva, as well as the Rock temple in c


.

As mentioned earlier the temples in

the North India vanished during the aiddle Ages and even the holy temple at Varanasi was desecrated
during the auslim rule in the North. However, some temples withstood the auslim assault and
miraculously escaped destruction. There is the temple at . ,
in aadhya Pradesh built by the
*   kings of Bundelkhand (late 9th Century). . ,
temple demonstrated vivid sculptures of
couples in embrace, and with its sexual mysticism was thought to be the center of Tantric cult long ago.
During the medieval period temples flourished in Orissa (between 10th and 13th Century), finest of
them being the famous ]
, temple in Bhubaneswar. In addition there are the 0 temple at
Puri and the Sun temple at Konarak, built in the 13th Century. Like . ,
, evidence of Tantric
worship is seen in Konarak. In the Western India the * ' or ë
'
 of Gujarat built the famous
Jain and Hindu temples in $
 between 11th and13th Centuries. Sculptures made of marble with
its cold lifelessness with extremely decorated ceilings, perhaps influenced by the auslim architecture,
are the hallmarks of at. Abu.

Innumerable temples exist in India and every one of them has its own charm and pious deity. The most
holy ones are not necessarily architectural masterpieces. Thus the holy temples of /
)
 
and ( do not exhibit any special characteristics in their building structures. .
  & 
1


the center of aadhva culture or the ë
 
 & in Karnataka do not boast of great buildings that
house the deities. Being pantheistic, Hindu religion has multitudes of recognized godheads.
Consequently there are thousands of temples in India that are considered to be holy with a powerful
deity in the sanctum sanctorum and it is not possible to enumerate them all in this article
One definition of a great civilization is the magnificence of its architectural legacy, and India is surely
among the foremost. The country is dotted with the remains of ages gone by, many world famous like
the Taj and Qutabainar, and some still cloaked in obscurity, off the tourist circuit, waiting to be
'discovered', but architectural gems nevertheless.

Architecture of India - is an attempt to present the Indian architecture for what it is:
an intelligent, innovative response to local conditions.

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Hindu temples represented the outer and the inner cosmos. The outer cosmos is expressed in terms of
various astronomical connections between the temple structure and the motions of the sun, the moon,
and the planets. The inner cosmos is represented in terms of the consciousness at the womb of the
temple and various levels of the superstructure that correspond to the states of consciousness.

6 $ 

A late example of a city designed according to the Vedic precepts is Jaipur. Vidyadhara, who designed
the plan of the city, used the pithapada mandala as the basis. In this mandala of nine squares that
represent the universe, earth occupies the central square. In the city, which consists of nine large
squares, the central square is assigned to the royal palace. 

 

 
 

 '
Length of City / Length of aiddle Town : 771.1/340.5 у 2.26; Length of aiddle Town / Length of Castle:
340.5/151 у 2.26

  India͛s contributions to mathematics played a pivotal role not only in the modern art,
architecture and industrial revolutions, but also in the scientific developments that have occurred since.
No other branch of science is complete without mathematics. India provided vital elements of
mathematics and scientific foundation without which humanity could not have entered this modern age
of science and high technology.

(




Boudhik Sessions of Hindu SwayamsevakSangh; taken from several speech, discussion sessions

Jagadguru Swami Sri BharatiKrisnaTirthajiaaharaja,Book on Sixteen Simple aathematical Formulae

from the Vedas The original introduction to Vedic aathematics; 1965 (various reprints).
Paperback, 367 pages, A5 in size.ISBN 82 208 0163 4.

Kak, Subhash. ͞An Overview of Ancient Indian Science͟.In T. R. N. Rao and SubhashKak, eds. Computing
Science in Ancient India, pp. 6-21.

Kak, Subhash. ͞Codes and Ciphers in Indian aathematics, Art, and Architecture͟ , keynote presentation
made in RSA 06-SFO conference.

Kak, The axis and the perimeter of the Hindu temple.aankind Quarterly,
2006.http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/axistemple.pdf

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