Rameshwaram, The Anchor of Indian Renaissance – 10

In the words of Sri Aurobindo, “An Indian temple to whatever godhead it may be built is in its inmost reality an altar raised to the divine Self, a house of the cosmic Spirit, an appeal and aspiration to the Infinite.”

Temple had pervaded not only religious life of the citizens but also their secular life and their spiritual aspirations. Indian temples had magnificent architecture with abundant sculptures, well documented parts and their significances. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, “Indian architecture especially demands this kind of inner study and this spiritual self-identification with its deepest meaning and will not otherwise reveal itself to us. The secular buildings of ancient India, her palaces and places of assembly and civic edifices have not outlived the ravage of time; what remains to us is mostly something of the great mountain and cave temples, something too of the temples of her ancient cities of the plains, and for the rest we have the fanes and shrines of her later times, whether situated in temple cities and places of pilgrimage like Srirangam and Rameshwaram or in her great once regal towns like Madura, when the temple was the centre of life. It is then the most hieratic side of a hieratic art that remains to us. These sacred buildings are the signs, the architectural self expression of an ancient spiritual and religious culture. Ignore the spiritual suggestion, the religious significance, the meaning of the symbols and indications, look only with the rational and secular aesthetic mind, and it is vain to expect that we shall get to any true and discerning appreciation of this art. (The Foundations of Indian Culture)

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