The Road Not Taken: An Alternative Understanding of Archival Data on Late Medieval Terracotta Temples of Bengal (original) (raw)
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Ways of Seeing: Late Medieval Bengal Temples
2014
The aim of this article is to present the different canons that have developed since the 20 th century CE for the study of late medieval Bengal temples. The prime focus is also to present the different notions of past which governed and constructed the present understanding of the terracotta temples by the scholars. It also presents how apart from an exception, all the dominant and 'popular' art-historical canons were unwilling to transgress their boundaries of culture based interpretation of the temples. The article concludes with the idea of development of that possible canon which would not study the society through the temples, rather study the society to understand the temples.
Terracotta to Terraces: Tracing the Unique Temple Architecture of Bengal
MAT Journals, 2024
This paper explores the diverse architectural styles of temple construction in Bengal from the 9th to the 19th centuries. Through a detailed examination of structural variations and decorations, the study highlights how the intermingling of Hindu, Islamic, and later European influences shaped the distinctive temple architecture in this region. The research uses architectural analysis and historical texts to identify key styles, such as the 'do-chala' and 'char-chala' huts, alongside the more ornate 'Ratna' and 'naba-ratna' structures. These styles reflect the religious and cultural synthesis and the geographical and material constraints influencing temple architecture in Bengal. The findings underscore the role of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and regional patronage in fostering a unique architectural heritage characterized by its terracotta embellishments and innovative structural forms. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of South Asian architectural diversity and its socio-religious contexts, offering insights into the region's broader patterns of cultural interchange.
Journal of Bengal Art, 2020
Lokāyata, as a word, primarily denotes the philosophy of the masses – spread or found among the common-folk. In that sense, it could largely be traced in the history of human culture and art, in various forms of architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, drama etc. But, whether the terracotta-ornamentation on religious-architectures of Bengal could also be included in the lokāyata-genre has always been a matter of great debate. Some are of opinion that even after having a kind of mass-expression in nature and style, the temples and mosques of Bengal lack the other symptoms of folk-tribal character. Most of them were built for and by the riches and hence couldn’t connect with the folk-tribal traditions of rural-Bengal. On the other hand, others have identified the terracotta-plaques from Paharpur, Mainamati and Mahasthangarh as specimens of folk-tribal art. They discovered inspiration and characteristics of the local folk culture in the works of Sultanate-era, considering their strong, lively and soulful motifs as to be extracted from the lokāyata archetype. But, in both the cases, these terracotta-ornamentations exhibit two prominent features: • their sprawling geographical-presence among the common populace of Bengal • their cultural-evolvement and unanimous-acceptance among the natural artistic-sense and aesthetic-belief of the rural-folk. No matter what the scholars say, these temples, mosques and their various ornamentations have been evoking for centuries a kind of awe and esteem in the minds of the local people, instigated by a diversified expanse of mass-culture typical to Bengal. Right from the core-philosophy or source-religion till the final result in form of viewers’ experience – the entire process was monitored by a continued analysis and deconstruction of various cultural-units through a series of conscious-thinking and subconscious-acts. This paper aims to analyze the source and evolution of this wonderful history spreading across fourteen-hundred odd years.
2017
The existence of temples as places of worship dates back to ancient times. This phenomenon is no exception to Bengal region in India. All branches of historical understanding and its continuous reconstruction have pointed to the existence of their presence in Bengal, which in case of this paper is the area of research. The temple building activities in this region saw a prolific growth not only in terms of number but also stylistic development during the late medieval and early modern period. The stylistic experimentation and adaptation was very quick and predominantly accelerated by the rapid socio-political changes that Bengal witnessed during the period under consideration. The aim of the paper is to highlight the importance of looking at the temples not in isolation, rather as a temporally variegated yet spatially organized totality. The variations of the typological, stylistic and formal attributes within a spatially segregated groupa clustermay shed light on the social, economic and religious history of a particular locality of a settlement and its dynamic complexities over a period with the addition, renovation and transformation of temples within the clustered organization. They may also point at the change and continuity of the patronage for particular sect or religious order, for particular settlement locality and also, for particular ecological zone. Comparison among the interpretations generated from micro scale localities, additionally, can force us to rethink the variegated dynamics pertaining to the construction, transformation, and abandonment of a temple in a cluster or temples of a cluster over a macro 2 | P a g e scale. This paper is a preliminary attempt to experiment the rethinking of looking at temples in Bengal in which Bengal has been assumed to be homogenous, in terms of religious history, colonial intervention and transformation, and ecology.
A Formal and Contextual understanding of the Jor-Bangla Gangeshwar Shiva Temple, Murshidabad
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Terracotta Temples of Bengal: A Culmination of Pre-existing Architectural Styles
The Chitrolekha Journal on Art and Design, 2017
Three major developments in religious architecture were seen in three different eras of Bengal's history – evolution of Nagara style temples which were influenced by the Orissan Rekha deuls, followed by the developments of Islamic Architecture through mosques and tombs, and lastly, the generation of Terracotta Temples. The Terracotta Temples of Bengal, famous for the use of Terracotta Plaques for surface decoration, had developed a unique style of architecture, quite distinct from the major styles of temple architecture that was prevailing in India. This paper intends to find out which architectural features of the Terracotta Temples got influenced and how they got influenced from the prevailing architectural styles.
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