A temple is just another building. It has all the structural elements of a building — floor, walls, pillars, windows, sunshades, roof. But in different forms, shapes and functions; and an aesthetic that evolved over centuries.
There are three major types of temples in India, categorised by architecture and region:
- Naagara – from Himalayas to the Vindhyas
- Vesara – from Vindhyas to the Krishna river
- Dravida – from Krishna river to Kanyakumari
These are broad categories as mentioned in several shilpa shaastras, and there are many subcategories.
This is a small compact elegant Chola era temple from Visalur, Pudukottai district, Tamil Nadu. There is no window, obviously; because it is the sanctum of a God, not the abode of a human.
The roof, called vimanam (comprising prastara, greeva, shikara and kalasa) is very elaborate, and decorated with sculptures.
The whole structure is called a mandiram, devaalaya or praasaada. Similar names exist in Malayalam (ambalam — house), Tamil (kovil — house of ruler); Kannada (gudi — house); Odia (deula — a derivative of devaalaya) and Assamese (dol).
The vimaanam may have more than one tala (level). Each tala has the same elements as the one below it, except they may be narrower or separated by one or more other elements.
A Naagara temple also has six basic elements, the shadvarga — but its starkest, most visual contrast to a Dravida temple is its steep verticality.
A Dravida vimanam appears to be a series of squares stacked on one another — a stepped pyramidal look.
A Naagara vimanam seems like a series of triangles or trapezoids merging at the summit. The vimanam can be of one or many levels, called bhumi.
The vertical separations into three five, or seven segments (rathas) has more visual impact.
A large capstone, amalaka, is another distinguishing feature.
The Rajaraja Choleesvaram temple of Tanjavur is a thirteen tala vimanam, and is justly called Devaalaya Chakravarthi.
One can hardly call something so majestic, “just another building.”
In conception, design and practice, a devaalayam is:
- a place for devotion, ritual, celebration
- a locus for a community, a retreat from tumult
- an expression of the soul and spirit of a people
- chiseled into beauty by skill, pride, passion, learning and dedication
- by sculptors, devotees, patrons long forgotten
Why build such temples, though? Are they expressions of vanity of kings? Or are they famine relief projects, as conjectured by some?
One particular king, “Mamalla” Narasimha Pallava, has left us an answer, in a poetic inscription, in the town that bears his name, Mamallapuram.
One stanza goes:
tenedam kaaritam tunga dhoorjaTer mandiram shubham
prajaanaam ishTa siddhi arthamshankareem bhutim icchataa
Translation The king built (kaaritam) this auspicious (shubham) temple (mandiram) for DhoorjaTa (Shiva), to fulfill peoples (prajaanaam) desire (ishTa siddhi artham) to receive his blessings (bhutim)
History and Evolution
Temples have legends associated with them, that they are places where a Deva, an Asura, a Rishi, or a King worshipped a specific God.
Some of these stories are from a time before historic evidence, except a continuous tradition.
Temples have a history of evolution, rebuilding, expansion, renovation, and sometimes destruction and abandonment.
Some of these vandalised or abandoned temples are subjects of archaeological and historic interest.
An ancestor of Narasimha, Mahendra Pallava, left us a fascinating inscription in a granite cave temple excavated into a rocky hill, in Mandagapattu, in Viluppuram district of Tamil Nadu.
The inscription reads:
etat anishTakam adrumam aloham asudham vichitrachittena nirmaapita nrpeNa brahmeshvara vishNu lakshita aayatanam
Translation: This temple (aayatanam) called Lakshita was commissioned (nirmaapita) by the king(nrpeNA) VichitraChitta (a title of Mahendra Pallava) for Brahma, Ishvara and Vishnu, without brick (anishTakam), without wood (adrumam), without metal (aloham) and without mortar (asudham)
Chitta means Thinker; Vichitra means both Beautiful and Strange. VichitraChitta is a title for the playful and inventive spirit of Mahendra Pallava, and his sculptors.
The inscription also tells us of earlier temples that were built of perishable metals such as wood, mortar and brick.
Subsequent Chola, Pandya inscriptions tell us of many brick temples that were rebuilt as stone temples.
From records of travellers like Megasthenes and Hiuen Tsang, we know that wood and brick temples proliferated all over India.
Stone temples from the Gupta age are found all over India.
We see three types of temples:
- Excavated cave temple
- Single stone temples (monoliths)
- Structural temples
There are a number of Buddhist, Jain, Hindu cave temples (and two Ajivaka caves) in rocky hills far away from cities, all over India.
Monoliths are few and far between. Structural temples, that is temples created by aligning cut blocks of rock, then sculpted and embellished, are the most common, popular and durable types of temples.
Materials, too, vary by region. Sandstone temples are common in northern Karnataka, Orissa, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, granite in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, basalt in Maharashtra and Telengana, soapstone in southern Karnataka, and timber in rainy or hilly areas like Kerala and Himachal Pradesh.
The earliest surviving stone temples, even the small ones, are quite well developed. They have several features that remind us of their wood and brick predecessors.
The simplest temples have a sanctum and an ardha-mandapa (Dravida) or antarala (Naagara).
Larger temples have an additional maha-mandapa, and, perhaps, one or more mandapas.
Often, these are nrtta or nata mandiras, for ceremonial dance. Frequently, marvelous sculptures adorn them. Orissa temples have a bhoga mandapa, where a number of food items are offered to the deity.
Some Nagari mahamandapas have beautifully decorated windows; others elaborate porticos, which focus light on the main deity.
The largest temples have a saandhaara passage, an inner circumambulatory corridor around the sanctum.
Some Pallava temples — Kanchi Vaikuntha, Uthiramerur Sundara Varada; and Pandya temples — Madurai Koodal Azhagar, Cheranmaadevi Ramaswamy — are three tiered.
There are three sanctums, one above the other inside a single vimanam, featuring one murthy of Vishnu each in standing, sitting and reclining positions.
Internal staircases are brilliantly designed to accommodate these.
Later, smaller parivaara shrines or other adjunct mandapas have also been built. The Vijayanagar kings, and their governors, the Nayaks of Madurai, Tanjavur, Gingee and Mysore, built enormous thousand-pillar halls, famous in Madurai and Srirangam.
The shadvarga themselves have many components, giving room for variety and the imagination of its creators.
The adishtaana of Dravida temples have two major parts — the kumudam and the jagati.
The kumudam is either three faces of a six faced beam or semi cylindrical. A jagati can be flat, or shaped like an inverted lotus. They may be either plain or decorated.
The paada or wall of a Dravida temple has one or more niches with sculptures of deities, but usually plain in between, except for pilasters, which may be elaborately decorated in different segments.
Pillars often have similar segments. The most elaborate of pillars are found in Kakatiya and Hoysala architecture, with extremely intricate sculptures.
The walls of early Nagari temples are plain, but later temples use pilasters of different styles adjacent to each other. The Mukteshvara temple features a cylindrical pilaster with a naga winding around, and a shadvarga flat pilaster with a dwarf, a shaalabhanjika etc. In contrast, Brahmeshvara temple features a two part pilaster with a mithuna couple, a dikpala et cetera.
There are also several other architectural features that we shall look at when we look at specific temples in detail.
Sthapathis and Shilpa Texts
An inscription in the Tanjavur temple of Rajaraja Chola names its architect as Kunjaramallan Rajaraja Perum Tacchan (Perum = great; Tacchan = Taksha, architect).
It seems that the king was so impressed with the enormous accomplishment, that he honoured the sthapathi with his own royal title.
Sadly, except in Karnataka, rarely are the builders and sculptors even mentioned.
Neither ancient aliens nor random people working for food during a famine, built our temples.
The Vishvakarma community, with a dedicated and vast volume of shilpa shaastra literature, scattered across the country in various clans and families, were and are the master artisans across millennia.
Poorly recognised in their own land, they jealously guarded several secrets of survey, engineering, logistics, art, technique, painting and tool design.
In the last century, some of their books have been translated and published for public perusal.
Maya Math, Shilpa Ratna Kosha, Marici Samhita and Kashyapa Samhita are shilpa shaastras.
Several agamas like Kaamika aagama, Karana aagama and many puranas too, have detailed information on architecture, sculpture, painting et cetera.
Karnataka remains a sterling exception to this lamentable neglect. The Chalukya monuments of Badami, Aihole and Pattadakkal are festooned with names of sculptors, artists, and master sthapathis.
Aihole temples proudly boast of Ganasobba and Narasobba, “the lion among sculptors.”
Sarvasiddhi Achari and Gundan Anavarita Achari are honoured as the architects of the Virupaksha temple in Pattadakkal.
There is even a gossip inscription accusing a Vakkasivadeva of questionable behaviour. Several popular legends, formerly orally transmitted, are now part of Kannada literature.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.