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Ixix
and proininent and liighly flourishing localities were selected for the sites of tempics and there they built the temple of the deity in the centre. With the Hindus, the material greatness was always subordinated to spiritual greatness; while with nationalities who hold the opposite view, who considered material suprernacy all supreme, the opposite of the style was necessarily the ideal; thc bathos was reversed, thc loftiest spires were placed in the centre over the sanctum sanctorum or the holiest spot of the temple and the other outer spires were made lower and unimposing. To the Hindu..., the soul was eternal and everything in the body was a clothing quite transicnt and unimportant.... Those who gave preponderance to the body or the corpus or who made no difference between the soul and the body made the body important".
Before examining the validity of the theory of bathos as adumbrated above, it would not be out of place if I were to mention bri fly the arrangement of temple construction in the Nāgara School of Architecture.
There is the sanctum sanctorum in this style also in the centre just as in the Dravidian arrangemen, the number of enclosures, unlike it, being only one or two, (instead of 5) at the most. As one enters the compound, the portico or apsat with a small cupola over it and then the grey with its faarat of a greater height meet with his gaze ; next in order is encountered the मूलशिखर with its उरशिळग, शुकनास, सिंह etc. which commands the greatest height when the 4897 and was are reached. The whole arrangement in this case presents a view which is the reverse of bathos or in thc language of rhetoric, a climax. The bathos of decreasing heights of Gopuras from the outside to the inside of Dravidian temples is as stated above strictly (as Mr. Anantlialwar liolds ) in accordancc with the ideal of Hindu conception of spiritual as contrasted with material greatness; and I may here add that the reverse of bathos viz. climax when tested by thc samo standard satisfies in an equal nieasure, the conceptions of Hindu idcal as set forth abovc. The devotee, in this case also, as long as he is beyond the main entrance or even in the very courtyard itself, is confronted with material greatness (highly enriched spires with tlieir attendant constituent members for the full play of his cxternal senses which are fully satiated by the grandeur and charm of the feet with its $231 and allied members and no sooner cioes he step into the 6 and foes in front of the than his affatt ceasc to have any play at all owing to the disappearance of what Ananthaltar styles material greatness and by thc time he reaches the pa i.e. flic nearest part to the Garbha Griha, his inner emotions begin to wake up and fit him for spiritual conteinplation, material greatness ac turmoil baving then had no scope for dctraction of his mind any longer. Onc wiro tries to dispassionately follow the foregoing line of arguments Wo once come to realize that the lengthy arguments advanced for the vindication of Dravidian bathos by the crucial test of Hindu rcligious of spiritual idcal find littlc justification, as the sanic argumcnts can
| SR No. | 008438 |
| Book Title | Aparajitaprucchha |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | B Bhattacharya |
| Publisher | Oriental Research Institute Vadodra |
| Publication Year | |
| Total Pages | 810 |
| Language | Sanskrit, Hindi |
| Classification | Book_Devnagari, Culture, & Art |
| File Size | 12 MB |