The mechanics of historic (South Indian) temple architecture: Pillars
Besides fulfilling the spiritual/religious needs of devotees are historic South Indian temples only sculptural marvels? What else can they teach us? In this post I limit the discussion to pillars and address other elements in subsequent posts. The question of what a temple structure can teach us became relevant after a visit to one of the many large temple complexes in Tamil Nadu. The temple's carved pillars are justly famous, which however led to a problematic outcome-the pillars were seen as free-standing sculptures with no other purpose than ornamentation, completely sidelining their essential functional role. At a pragmatic level from a conservation standpoint I found this problematic as the probably historic stone floor and any (un-carved) available portion of the pillar and beam arrangement, including the capitals, had been drilled into, in order to insert electrical wiring, conduits, tube-lights, switchboards, meter boards, and floodlights to highlight the 'glorious c...