602 pages, Hardcover,
17,0 x 24,0 cm, 2022
including 240 plates
More information
A History of Hindu Architecture in India explores the history of Hindu architecture in South Asia in a way that connects the times, places, styles, and patrons of buildings with larger, persistent cultural, metaphysical, and symbolic ideas. It summarizes what is currently known of Hindu religious architecture, presents new research, and provides ample context based on a thematic approach that moves beyond standard dynastic and regional surveys. Themes ranging from caste, to geometry, to sculptural programing; from sacred landscapes to the spatial organization of monuments; from the surfaces of structures to builders, materials and methods; and to the reception and use of the religious architecture of Hinduism, cut through and across the essays included here. The volume includes twenty-six substantive and original essays oriented to a scholarly and educated public, along with 238 high-resolution black and white photographs.
Cathleen A. Cummings is Associate Professor of Art History at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a specialist in South Asian art, especially Hindu temple architecture. Her book, Decoding a Hindu Temple: Royalty and Religion in the Iconographic Program of the Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal, was published in 2014 by The South Asian Studies Association. She has also published on Rajput painting and Vajrayana Buddhist art. Cummings received her doctorate in art history from The Ohio State University, and MAs from Ohio State and the University of London. She is currently researching religious architecture in the context of India’s Maratha polity.
