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architecture in India. Over a span of five hundred years, there is an artistic growth and a movement, but all within an abiding cultural stillness that can be perhaps best understood with a certain mythopoeic reference that goes beyond the mere facts of history.
This work has been in the making since 1980; the photographs and the reflections on the iconography and architecture with numerous stories that are enfolded in them - needed much defining and refining at many stages. In this process I am beholden to many in several places: at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, during my Fellowship in 1986-87, and at the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto in Canada for discussions with Dr. Michael Aris, Dr. S.C. Malik, Dr. Sukrita Kumar, Professor M.M. Agrawal, Professor Rekha Jhanji, Professor Joseph O'Connell and Professor Frank Thompson. My gratitude is also to Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, Ontario Arts Council, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts for supporting this work in numerous ways.
This work could not have been completed in the present form without the support and guidance of Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan at all stages. I express my profound gratitude to Kapilaji for seeing it through.
I am also much thankful to Dr. L.M. Gujral, Consultant, IGNCA, and to Mr. Shakti Malik of Abhinav Publications for their support and dedication for this work.
Above all I am beholden for a certain reflection on these temples to the immensely gifted artists and the artisans who created works of such grandeur many centuries ago.
Sehdev Kumar
XIV
