Philosophy & Architecture

By Saswati Das

Hindu Cosmology & Western Astrophysics through Hindu Temples

The Rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) is a system of varying organizations that remains consistent over time. Involving only questions posed against a world of virtualities, it is different from the Arborescent model-of-thought that rests upon linear logic.

Hindu Architecture, though visually guided by principles demarcating its physical limits, can be viewed as an example of rhizomatic thought because the underlying idea of Hindu cosmology actually explores ideas resonating with western astrophysics. There are several subjective truths that create Hindu mythology and supposed-facts which create Hindu cosmology. Temples are a culmination of both. This article draws co-relations between mythology and cosmology, through the Rhizomatic thought process, using the Hindu temple as an intermediate object, illustrating the rhizome in architectural context.

UNDERSTANDING THE RHIZOME

Each point in a Rhizome is a direction of idea which connects with others to form various configurations creating an emergent series of readings which continuously change. It behaves like a water body, which trickles wherever there is space.

In the act of thinking, a mental image is formed, processed and conveyed in a streamlined form. The Rhizome is an Image of Thought challenging these habits. Consider two cases (Ballantyne, 2007):

1. “Earth orbits the Sun”: This is a Fact. One can form a mental image.
2. “Sun rises in the east”: This is Perception. It can be discussed between people – a reproduction of a fact.

The Points within a Rhizome are not reproductions, but facts without description, liked by unstable lines and experienced through works of Art, sculptures and so on. They re-describe events, revealing new identities of the Rhizome by allowing multiple entry and exit points, thereby creating an amoebic form. It then behaves singularly, not as derivative of a whole.

Despite its varied interpretations, a single rhizome remains distinct from others by virtue of its linkages. Consider a piece of cloth with interlocking threads: one is fixed and the other moves in several directions to bind the two. Each method creates a different striated texture, yet the surface appears smooth. Similarly, a Rhizome consists of heterogeneous linkages that read only upon closer inspection. “It now belongs to a smooth space. It draws a plane that has no more dimensions than that which crosses it; therefore the multiplicity it constitutes takes a consistency of its own” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987).

The nature of a Rhizome changes only when the Points undergo change. Change in the nature of possibilities leads to new linkages, granting newer configurations over the initial structure. This is visible in the nature of an Island vis-à-vis Desert (Deleuze, Desert Islands). There is conflict, yet coherence between both identities. An Island can be understood mentally by virtue of two qualities, either or both of which may be true at any time.

1. Far , alone.
2. Starting from scratch

These are two ways by which an island is a desert. A real Desert is so due to poor conditions for inhabitance. But an Island is deserted, only by mental interpretation: it is deserted more than it is a Desert.  It reaches a state of pure consciousness, allowing a state of dynamism. Each island is a rhizome with its own possibilities, which changes only when its configuration undergoes complete change (for instance, volcanoes or any natural calamity).

Eventually, the Rhizome reinvents the sciences of spirit with a dynamic basis, away from reality, opening up avenues for imaginations. With a loss of self, amidst chaos, it awakens a sense of alternative possibilities that destabilizes the common-sense order of things and dissolves our preconceptions. From this deterritorialized state of unformed virtuality, the actual emerges.

  METAPHYSICAL SPACE  -  ACIT : RHIZOME

“If consciousness was not self manifested the Universe would be blind darkness.”

-Adisankara, Dakshinamurthy stotra, verse 23

This statement indicates that in some sense, the understanding of physical space stems from understanding one’s own self. Although the nature of self, consciousness is an unexplained quality, physical space exists primarily due to the presence of consciousness. It is therefore, important to understand the latter in order to comprehend the world around (Ramanna, 1986). A general classification divides the sum of knowledge into three parts:

1. Cit: Awareness of the existence of something which is self-manifested, without physical evidence.
2. Acit: The world which human-beings can comprehend through the language of mathematics and sciences.
3. Isvara: Concerning existential questions.

Post World-War-II, science and mathematics became the basis of all understanding. The structure of the atom explained physical processes in spaces ranging from 10^-14 centimetres to light years. Thereafter, the entire aspect of Cit became a mere attribute of Acit. However, the fact ignored was that the core of all science and mathematics is based upon probability itself (Gödel Model, 1936), evident in the Dual Nature of atom. Upon interaction of consciousness with observed phenomenon, a scientific phenomenon becomes a physical quantity. But it is not necessarily what really happens. It happens only to satisfy the human mind with a solution observed. There is still an introduction of ideas through intuition, mysticism and so on, where the science of consciousness has not been created. It is a state outside our waking state, dream state and so on. Yet it is that which exists and is experienced by the human being more closely than what consciousness perceives (Ramanna, 1991).

The physical world is a representation of consciousness, defined by arboreal constants such as mathematics and physics. However, the world is not one, it is several (Deleuze, 1987). Its understanding and consequently, physical space are varied for different individuals. Like a rhizome, the importance is in the subconscious interpretation in the cycle of the real world. What we experience is a recreation of that which is established (Deleuze, 2002).

FORMLESS REALITY : MACROCOSM and its PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION

“The Indian temple, an exuberant growth of seemingly haphazard and numberless forms… never loses control over its extravagant wealth…. It visualizes the cosmic force that creates innumerable forms; these are a whole and without the least of them, universal harmony would lack completeness.” (Kramrisch, 1922)

The Hindu Temple was conceived with the idea of providing shelter to the images that focus worship and the worshipper, creating a space for controlled rituals. Such sacred enclosures before 5^th CE AD included Tree Shrines and similar structures marked by a vertical axis (Tree, Linga¹, Snake) within a square railing denoting a nodal point of manifestation.

In creation myths, the Cosmic Axis separates the Heaven from Waters. Creation flows from this node in the four cardinal directions, producing a square Universe, enclosed within a railing. The vertical axis, square altar and the enclosure form an established configuration which persists in Indian Architecture to demonstrate the participation of each monument in the cosmogonic process.

The Vastupurushamandala² is a direct architectural interpretation:  a square diagram outlining creation, on which temples, palaces and cities are founded. The myth of the Vastupurusa³ portrays the first sacrifice, in which a demon is flayed and his skin is held down by divinities that ring the diagram. In the centre is the place for Brahman⁴, the place for the formless, ultimate, ‘supreme reality’ (Meister, 1991).

Sacred architecture expresses non-dual vision in its parallelism between the macrocosm and its manifestation. The Indian Temple is a mnemonic of several cosmological concepts, also found in modern astrophysics (J. McKim Malville, 1991). The concept of primordial chaos, creation through disruption, expansion of Universe and its separation are also shared concepts of Hindu myth and modern cosmology.

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PRINCIPLES : HINDU ARCHITECTURE – MYTH : MICROCOSM

Primordial-chaos was the initial state of the universe, where neither space nor time existed. Since it lies between us and the start of the universe, physics cannot probe into the fundamental essence of our beginnings. In macrocosm, the astronomer proceeds backward in time by moving outward into space. The Black Hole is an observational model for the gravitational collapse that may end our universe. Its centre is the singularity wherein all matter and energy fall inwards for an eternity

Imitating the Black Hole, the womb of the temple, Garba-Griha emphasizes the one-on-one relationship between Man and the unknown- symbolic of undifferentiated wholeness from which the universe emerged. It provides personal renewal paralleling the universe (Shulman, 1980). Spreading outward along cardinal directions, the stones of the temple symbolize the transformation of the universe, becoming increasingly restricted. Set upon Vastupurusamandala, the yantra⁶ symbolizes the sacrifice and dismemberment of Cosmic Man and re-establishment of Cosmic Order (Kramrisch, 1946; Vatsyayan, 1983).  These conjoint macroscopic and microscopic concepts are ensconced in the temple-walls, which are only functional. The temple depicts a cosmos ordered and pervaded by the deity.

Anthropomorphic images of worship represent cosmic parturition: coming into existence of a divine formless reality. For example, the representation of Buddha in cosmic form, replacing the Stupa⁷ as focus and Bodhisattvas⁸, who mediate between aspirants and the ultimate reality. The formless divine reality, through the process of creation takes infinite forms in this (created) world; an individual may choose one ‘trunk’ for worship while the others become ‘branches’. The temple becomes a static model of the cosmos, a marker of the origin of the Universe while also being a procession through time.

SYMBOLISM – ASTROPHYSICS : MYTHOLOGY

Physics has proven that in state of equilibrium, both creative and destructive processes are balanced. Creativity can emerge only from imbalance. During expansion, systems exist. If expansion reverses, chaos would reign supreme. Death would come by the unlimited expansion or the return to a cosmic black hole in the absence of space-time, till the process of rebirth takes place.

Hindu mythology is abundant with instances which metaphorically explain the birth of the universe from some form of destruction, explosion or dynamism, comparable with the Big Bang. The Lotus, Shikhara⁹, Gopuras¹⁰ are some symbols which depict expansion and differentiation in myth and temples. The Brihadeswara Temple, Srirangam where the gopura is an embellishment of space from the initial bloated seed of space-time is an example.

Indian cosmogony as primeval architecture has the creation of space as its theme. In the well-ordered structure, the cosmos has its place. Man, being the Microcosm is defined in the Upanishad (Chand 8.1.1-3) as the “City of Brahman.”  Within this city, ‘a small lotus flower’ contains a small part that is the deepest truth to be known. This space in the heart of the City of Brahman is hidden within the heart of man. This is the paradox of innermost realization in which the secret of the cosmos is known to man, the microcosm. It holds the entire cosmos within the City of Brahman.

The Garba Griha represents this space physically. It is the innermost loci assigned to the presence of God.  It extends paradoxically as far as the space outside man, comprised of heaven, earth, fire, air and stars. The architecture of the inner world of the human being is planned with respect to the outer world (Stella Kramrisch, 1991).

There is a co-evolution of the microcosm and the macrocosm, a growth of two realms: being and experience. The inner and outer space change as both are interdependent. Myth and astrophysics are not absolute statements, but partial representations of a larger reality.

hence  

rhizome – fractals : cosmology – built architecture

“A fold that opens humans out to that which is specifically non-human. That is forces that can be folded back ‘into’ themselves to produce new modalities of being and expression” (Deleuze, 1987).

The Hindu temple mimics the universe as a model. It brings man into contact with the world, with a sense of diminishing scale when one enters the temple along a defined axis till the Garba- Griha. All matter, energy, consciousness and chaos collide.

This shows resonance of western science in Indian ontological conception of space. Although physics understands light as the first phenomenon of creation, which led to existence of space and time, Indian cosmology understands space (Stella Kramrisch, 1991). This understanding is rhizomatic, where the interpretations of the same subject are different.

Eventually the static Hindu Temple becomes an arboreal representation of the dynamic rhizomatic comprehension of the universe with no scale, shape, size.

REPRESENTION:  TREE  –  PHYSICAL ARBORESCENCE

The Tree is an explicit visualization as it is connected with water, which is considered life-giving and life-threatening, and the idea of perpetual rejuvenation. It signifies the cosmic axis separating earth and heaven, giving birth to space for physical existence. The tree is significant in Indian architecture, physically and symbolically. The dichotomy is that although Indian architecture is almost non-arboreal in thought process, its physical manifestation is structured and the Tree is the physical symbol.

Treated like a living being in India, it takes the form of religious veneration. The Kalpa Vriksha, one of the Five Trees of Indra’s¹¹ Paradise, is considered the mythic abundance-granting Tree on the Ashoka¹² Sthamba (Besnagar, India). Besides demarcating the limits of civilization, it also paraphrases symbolism of the Pillar as Indra-Kila – recollecting Indra’s mythic establishment of the fundamental laws of nature which govern the beginning and continuation of life cycle (Jan Pieper, 1991). It connotes ideas of aesthetic space compatible with cosmological space. It is framed by architectural elements making it a natural shelter and marking it as an object of worship. The result is hybrid: half nature and half artifact.  There are several other such examples including the Banyan Tree under which Buddha gained enlightenment.

hence

Hindu architecture is driven by rhizomatic comprehensions of existential questions parallel to the norms of science and mathematics. Allowing diverse interpretations, it is a complete picture of the cosmos; yet it is eventually symbolized physically, by the structure (Tree) which negates its rhizomatic thought-process.

Essentially, the Hindu Temple is an outstandingly unique example of the rhizome, represented by its opposite, the tree – physically and symbolically.

REFERENCES

1. Deleuze, Gilles. Guattari, Felix. “Capitalism and Schizophrenia: A Thousand Plateaus”, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 1987
2. Ballantyne, Andrew. “Deleuze and Guattari for Architects”, Routledge Taylor and Francais Group, London, New York, 2007
3. Deleuze, Gilles. Guattari, Felix. “Capitalism and Schizophrenia: A Thousand Plateaus”, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 1987.
4. Deleuze, Gilles. “Desert Islands and Other Texts”, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. And London, England, 2002.
5. Ramanna, Raja. “Physical Space in the Context of All Knowledge” from Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Deleuze, Gilles. “Desert Islands and Other Texts”, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. And London, England, 2002.
9. Kramrisch, Stella. “The Expressiveness of Indian Art”, Journal of the Department of Letters, X, 1967
10. W. Meister, Michael. “The Hindu Temple: Axis of Access”, Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991
11. Malville, J.McKim. “Astrophysics, Cosmology and the Interior Space of Indian Myths and Temples”, Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991
12. Shulman, David Dean. “Tamil temple Myths”, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1980
13. Vatsyayan, Kapila. “The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts”, New Delhi, Roli Books International, 1983
14. Kramrisch, Stella. “The Temple as Purusa”, Studies in Indian Temple Architecture.
15. Deleuze, Gilles. Guattari, Felix. “Capitalism and Schizophrenia: A Thousand Plateaus”, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 1987
16. Kramrisch, Stella. “Space in Indian Cosmogony and in Architecture”, Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991
17. Pieper, Jan. “Arboreal Art and Architecture in India”, Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991

 

Images

1. www.google.com
2. www.travelpod.com
3. www.optusnet.com
4. www.columbia.edu
5. www.google.com

APPENDIX

1. ^1.                Linga: Meaning “mark” or “sign” a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples. It is considered a symbol of male creative energy or of the phallus.
2. ^2.                Vastupurusamandala: constitutes the mathematical and diagrammatic basis for generating design in a traditional Hindu system of design based on directional alignments. It is the metaphysical plan of a building that incorporates the course of the heavenly bodies and supernatural forces.  Purusa refers to energy, power, soul or cosmic man. Mandala is the generic name for any plan or chart which symbolically represents the cosmos.
3. ^3.                Vastupurusa: Refer to above.
4. ^4.                Brahman: In Hindu religion, it is the eternal, unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this Universe.
5. ^5.                Garba Griha: A small, unlit shrine in the temple; the innermost sanctum where resides the idol of the primary deity.
6. ^6.                Yantra: Instrument or Machine; it can stand for symbols, processes, automata, machinery or anything that has structure and organization, depending on context.
7. ^7.                Stupa: A mound0like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship.
8. ^8.                Bodhisattva: Either an enlightened-existence, or an enlightenment-being; heroic minded one for enlightenment to attain Buddha-hood for the benefit of all sentient beings.
9. ^9.                Shikhara: Mountain peak: refers to rising tower of the Hindu temple in North India.
10. ^10.           Gopura: A monumental tower, usually ornate, at the entrance of any South Indian temple. It is a prominent feature of the Dravidian style.
11. ^11.           Indra: King of Gods; Lord of Heaven; God of War, Storms and Rainfall.
12. ^12.           Ashoka: An Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty who ruled almost the entire Indian subcontinent from 269 – 232 B.C.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Eisenman, Peter. “Unfolding Events: Frankfurt Rebstock and the Possibility of a New Urbanism”, Berlin Ernst and Sohn, 1991
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3. Parr, Edrian. “The Deleuze Dictionary”, Edinburgh University Press, 2005
4. Deleuze, Gilles. “Difference and Repetition”, Columbia University Press, New York, 1968
5. De Landa, Manuel. “Diagrams and the Genesis of Form”, 1997
6. Hawking, Stephen. “A Brief History of Time”, 1988
7. Deleuze, Gilles. Guattari, Felix. “Capitalism and Schizophrenia: A Thousand Plateaus”, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 1987
8. Ballantyne, Andrew. “Deleuze and Guattari for Architects”, Routledge Taylor and Francais Group, London, New York, 2007
9. Deleuze, Gilles. “Desert Islands and Other Texts”, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. And London, England, 2002
10.  Ramanna, Raja. “Physical Space in the Context of All Knowledge” from Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991
11. W. Meister, Michael. “The Hindu Temple: Axis of Access”, Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991
12. Malville, J.McKim. “Astrophysics, Cosmology and the Interior Space of Indian Myths and Temples”, Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, 1991
13. Vatsyayan, Kapila. “The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts”, New Delhi, Roli Books International, 1983
14. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. “Traditional Art and Symbolism”, Princeton, 1977
15. Kramrisch, Stella. “The Temple as Purusa”, Studies in Indian Temple Architecture.
16. Shulman, David Dean. “Tamil temple Myths”, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1980
17. Vatsyayan, Kapila. “The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts”, New Delhi, Roli Books International, 1983