SOUTH INDIAN TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE

also called Dravida Style, architecture invariably employed for Hindu temples in modern Tamil Nadu from the 7th to the 18th century, characterized by its pyramidal, or kutina-type, tower. Variant forms are found in Karnataka (formerly Mysore) and Andhra Pradesh states. The South Indian temple consists essentially of a square-chambered sanctuary topped by a superstructure, tower, or spire and an attached pillared porch or hall (mandapa, or mantapam), enclosed by a peristyle of cells within a rectangular court. The external walls of the temple are segmented by pilasters and carry niches housing sculpture. The superstructure or tower above the sanctuary is of the kutina type and consists of an arrangement of gradually receding stories in a pyramidal shape. Each story is delineated by a parapet of miniature shrines, square at the corners and rectangular with barrel-vault roofs at the centre. The tower is topped by a dome-shaped cupola and a crowning pot and finial. The origins of the Dravida style can be observed in the Gupta period. The earliest extant examples of the developed style are the 7th-century rock-cut shrines at Mahabalipuram and a developed structural temple, the Shore Temple (c. 700), at the same site. The South Indian style is most fully realized in the splendid Brhadisvara temple at Thanjavur, built about 100310 by Rajaraja the Great, and the great temple at Gangaikondacolapuram, built about 1025 by his son Rajendra Cola. Subsequently, the style became increasingly elaboratethe complex of temple buildings enclosed by the court became larger, and a number of successive enclosures, each with its own gateway (gopura), were added. By the Vijayanagar period (13361565) the gopuras had increased in size so that they dominated the much smaller temples inside the enclosures.