The Jain temples at Dilwara in Mount Abu evoke a sense of awe for their sculptural artistry. Unnamed artists who had, for years, created exquisite pieces in ivory, now worked with marble, sculpting ceilings and domes, columns and walls, creating works of unparalleled beauty. They carried forward, and deepened, a rich tradition of temple building in India, with their plethora of images from Indian myths and legends. Numerous Gods and Goddesses, yaksas and yaksis, dancers and musicians, apsaras and nagins, as well as flowers and trees-mythic and real–adore every nook and corner of these temples. The most outstanding feature of these temples are the thousand-petalled lotuses that decorate the domes in the rangamandapas, signifying a very highly evolved technical and artistic achievement. Some 200 kms away and 500 years later, in Ranakpur, the Adisvara temple is an achievement of a different kind. It is renowned for its architectural splendour; a thousand columns that define its wondrous spaces are all unique, as no two are alike. Using these temples as nodal points for a photographic and a reflective study, Professor Sehdev Kumar explores the artistic nuances of these temples in the context of the rich tradition of temple architecture and iconography in India.
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